1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Special Session 10 Monday, August 23, 2004 11 9:00 a.m. 12 Commissioners' Courtroom 13 Kerr County Courthouse 14 Kerrville, Texas 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X August 23, 2004 2 PAGE --- Commissioners' Comments 4 3 1.1 Set a Public Hearing for Revision of Plat for 4 Tracts 28A & 25B of Y.O. Ranchlands 7 1.2 Consider list of roads for name changes, 5 regulatory signs, and road abandonment; set public hearing for same 8 6 1.3 Status report on Rabies and Animal Control Department activities 11 7 1.4 Status report on Environmental Health Department activities 16 8 1.5 Resignation of Justice of the Peace #3 -- 1.6 Consider approval of Telecommunications 9 Equipment Lease for Kerr County Courthouse 23, 30 1.7 Consider authorizing insurance requests for 10 proposals, with or without assistance of a consultant, for employee health benefit plans for 11 next year, or alternatively, authorize procedure(s) for interview and/or selection of consultant 24 12 1.10 Consider and discuss confirmation of appointment of members at large for the Kerrville/Kerr County 13 Joint Airport Board 33 1.11 Eminent domain proceedings for property to protect 14 airport approaches (Executive Session item) 36 15 4.1 Pay Bills 37 4.2 Budget Amendments 38 16 4.3 Late Bills -- 4.4 Read and Approve Minutes 44 17 4.5 Approve and Accept Monthly Reports 45 18 1.8 Consider and discuss 2005 Texas County & District Systems Plan Rate and Plan changes 46 19 1.9 Consider permitting Shannon Air 1 subscription program available for purchase in Kerr County, 20 authorize County Judge to sign authorization letter 87 21 3.1 Action taken on Executive Session items (1.11) 112 22 --- Adjourned 113 23 24 25 3 1 On Monday, August 23, 2004, at 9:00 a.m., a special 2 meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in the 3 Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, Kerrville, 4 Texas, and the following proceedings were had in open court: 5 P R O C E E D I N G S 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning. Let me call to 7 order the meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court 8 posted for this time and date, Monday, August 23rd, 2004, at 9 9 a.m. Commissioner Williams, I think it's your pleasure 10 this morning. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Please join me in a 12 word of prayer and pledge of allegiance to the flag. 13 (Prayer and pledge of allegiance.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. At this time, if 15 there is any member of the public that wishes to be heard on 16 any matter or item that is not an agenda item, you're free 17 to come forward at this time and tell us what's on your 18 mind. If you wish to be heard on an agenda item, we'd ask 19 that you wait until that item is called. And we further 20 ask -- it's not essential, but we request that you fill out 21 a participation form; they're at the back of the room, so 22 that hopefully I won't miss you when we get to that item. 23 But, at this time, if anybody has any matter that they want 24 to speak to that is not a listed agenda item, feel -- feel 25 free to come forward at this time. I see no one coming 8-23-04 4 1 forward, so apparently we have no one there. What do you 2 have for us today, Commissioner Williams? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't have anything 4 that pops to the front of my brain immediately, Judge. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Gee, that was easy. 6 Commissioner Letz? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just a lot of rain, at 8 least in our part of the county, but it was pretty 9 localized. We had 5 inches at our house, but I know Comfort 10 only had a little over an inch. So, just that little corner 11 of the county got a pretty good shower last night. 12 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I pass. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Gosh, yeah. Okay, 14 I'll say something now. I get all that time? 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: I didn't say that. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No? I just wanted to 18 say that I'm glad to see the honorable Gerald Johnson from 19 the city of Ingram with us today, and our good friend comes 20 in occasionally and observes and advises, and glad to see 21 him here. And I don't know if you guys have been watching 22 the Olympics on TV, but, man oh man, some of the most 23 exciting stuff I've ever seen. In my opinion, the best 24 athlete on the whole deal is tonight, Jeremy Warner. He's a 25 quarter-miler I told you about from Baylor. 8-23-04 5 1 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Bill's got his 2 Baylor coat on today. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, you do. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm going to wear it 5 tonight. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: His teammate's in the 7 mile relay tomorrow, so two guys to watch. Jesse and I got 8 to talk to him a little bit earlier, before we even saw him 9 run, and this guy -- this guy is a phenomenon. He truly is, 10 and he's white. I know I shouldn't be saying that kind of 11 thing, but I did. And I'm glad I did. That's all. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. As I'm sure most 13 of you recall, we had last week a visit from a 14 representative of the Texas Workers Compensation Commission 15 that was here to review our recently initiated safety 16 program, especially as it pertained to the administrative 17 personnel that work in Kerr County. I say recently 18 initiated. Actually, we -- we began it back in the latter 19 part of 2003, but formally began in February, I believe it 20 was, 2004. Already, I -- I see that program as having made 21 some gains for us. Number one, one of the initial 22 considerations for getting into a safety program was the -- 23 was the incentive provided to us by the Texas Association of 24 Counties which we received, which was a 10 percent credit or 25 rebate, as it were. I'm not sure how they characterize it, 8-23-04 6 1 but it cost us $18,000 less on our workman's compensation 2 coverage, so in effect, it saved us $18,000. Further, by 3 initiating this safety program, we ascertained that since 4 its formal initiation in February of this year, as to the 5 administrative personnel that this particular segment 6 covered, that we have had no lost-time accidents since we 7 initiated that program in that personnel classification. 8 Things weren't perfect. We had some things that were 9 brought to our attention that needed to be addressed, and 10 we're going to address them. But I think the important 11 thing that we need to keep focused on here is that safety is 12 an everyday thing, and we need to think safety, do safety, 13 and -- and do it as an ongoing part of our everyday 14 employment here. 15 I particularly want to thank Ms. Nemec and -- 16 and Ms. Nix in her office, who's taken the lead in this -- 17 in this safety program. She's the one that's doing all the 18 documentation with respect to the admin people. Now, Road 19 and Bridge has a separate program, and they're working very 20 hard on theirs. And I think probably in about three months, 21 they'll -- they'll have a visit from this -- or some 22 representative from the Workers Compensation Commission. 23 But they're very much involved in their program, and I think 24 things are improving for them in the way of lost-time 25 accidents. But, bottom line, the thanks goes to every 8-23-04 7 1 employee of Kerr County who is now involved in the safety 2 program, and who's going to end up -- the net result is 3 going to be that we're going to end up saving money, having 4 fewer injuries to our personnel, and it's just going to be a 5 win-win deal all across the board. Our comp rates are going 6 to go down. Our health rates are going to improve. It's 7 going to be a win-win thing across the board. So, I want to 8 thank all the employees for their participation in this 9 program, and we're committed to going forward with it. 10 That's all I got. Let's get on to the first item on the 11 agenda. We need to set a public hearing for revision of a 12 plat for Tracts 28A and B of the Y.O. Ranchlands. 13 MR. JOHNSTON: Good morning. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning. 15 MR. JOHNSTON: September 27th, 2004, at 16 10 a.m. 17 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move to set the 18 public hearing. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded to 21 set a public hearing for the revision of a plat for Tracts 22 28A and 25B of Y.O. Ranchlands for September 27, 2004, at 10 23 a.m. Any further question or discussion? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question. Franklin, do 25 you know the plans for the property? Is it going to be -- I 8-23-04 8 1 mean, I noticed the person who -- the developer, and he's a 2 real developer; actually did Falling Waters. 3 MR. JOHNSTON: I don't know of any future 4 plan. He's just combining these two lots. He hasn't 5 discussed anything in the future. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Anyway, that's kind of 7 a -- he does some pretty large developments around here. 8 He's out of San Angelo, you know, and is a big-time 9 developer in that part of the world. So -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: If I might, let me restate the 11 motion. That involves Tracts 28A and 25 -- 28B. I think I 12 originally said 25B, and that was in error. Should be 28A 13 and 28B of the Y.O. Ranchlands. Any further question or 14 discussion? 15 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: 10 a.m.? 16 JUDGE TINLEY: September 27th, '04. All in 17 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 18 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 19 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 20 (No response.) 21 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Thank 22 you, Mr. Johnston. 23 MR. JOHNSTON: Thank you. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: The next item on the agenda is 25 consider a list of roads for name changes, regulatory signs, 8-23-04 9 1 and road abandonment, and to set a public hearing for the 2 same. 3 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. Good morning. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning, Mr. Odom. 5 MR. ODOM: Good morning, Judge. It's the 6 intent to set a public hearing on September the 27th at 7 10 a.m. in Commissioners Courtroom at Kerr County Courthouse 8 at 700 Main, Kerrville, Texas, concerning the proposed signs 9 and name changes as follows: The old name of Bee Caves, 10 which was sent in to the court records. When we accepted 11 that, it should have been Upper Bee Caves. The regulatory 12 signs are a yield sign on Cedar Springs; stop sign at 13 Westwood Subdivision on Acorn, and Fox Trail to Skyview; 14 45 mile-an-hour, Center Point River Road; and also, we have 15 40 mile-an-hour on Wharton Road, but I went back and checked 16 the records. We already have an existing court order, 17 Number 23480, that makes it 40 miles an hour, so that is not 18 necessary to have Wharton Road. And then abandon, 19 discontinue, and vacate from Kerr County maintenance Lackey 20 Road. That has been gated over. That is off Camp Verde; 21 goes down, and I believe that gentleman's bought all that 22 land. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Goes into private 24 property? 25 MR. ODOM: Goes into private property right 8-23-04 10 1 there. And also, that we have -- I talked to Mr. Nixon 2 about this, that we've had -- been approached to end that 3 portion of Teagner Road, to abandon that back to the 4 citizens back there, and we're waiting on that petition. 5 So, we would ask -- I don't know if we could ask the Court 6 to go ahead and accept this abandonment contingent on 7 receiving that petition, but we have no problems 8 on abandoning that. I'll leave that up to y'all's judgment. 9 I would say that we would go ahead and abandon that portion 10 based upon that petition coming into the office, which 11 hasn't been done yet. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can have a public 13 hearing, and we can decide based on what you get between now 14 and then. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Question, if I might. This is 16 a proposed notice? 17 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Only reason I mention that is 19 that you stated 10 a.m. We just got through setting one for 20 10 a.m. Maybe we ought to change this one to 10:15. 21 MR. ODOM: How about 10:15? I'm sorry, I 22 couldn't remember -- 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Leonard, what did you 24 do under the regulatory signs? Did you do Fox Trail? I 25 didn't hear you say that, but -- 8-23-04 11 1 MR. ODOM: Acorn and Fox Trail, yes. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I move to approve 4 the name changes and the reg -- move to approve setting a 5 hearing for the name changes and regulatory signs and the 6 abandonment for September 27th at 10:15 a.m. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 9 approval of the agenda item. Any question or discussion? 10 All in favor of that motion, signify by raising your right 11 hand. 12 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 13 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 14 (No response.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Thank 16 you very much, Mr. Odom. 17 MR. ODOM: Thank you. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: The next item on the agenda is 19 a status report on the Rabies and Animal Control Department 20 activities. Mr. Allen? 21 MR. ALLEN: Morning. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Good to see you here. 23 MR. ALLEN: So far, we're starting off with 24 about an average year. The good thing is, we haven't had a 25 confirmed case of rabies since last year, which is very 8-23-04 12 1 good. We've handled 2,579 animals in the shelter up to 2 August. We've still got two months left in the year. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 25 what? 4 MR. ALLEN: 2,579. That's just dogs and cats 5 in the shelter. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: That's since last October? 7 MR. ALLEN: Yes. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Fiscal? Okay. 9 MR. ALLEN: We've euthanized 1,674. Reclaims 10 is 325, and we've adopted out 193. Those numbers are all 11 averages. We ran 2,835 calls, and 78 P.D. or S.O. assists. 12 That's after-hour calls. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What was the last item? 14 MR. ALLEN: After-hour call outs was 78. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: How many reclaims? I'm sorry, 16 I didn't get that one. 17 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: 325. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Marc, what 20 constitutes an after-hours call? 21 MR. ALLEN: Emergency, police assist, where 22 they go out and arrest somebody; we go pick up the animal 23 that they have. Dog bites, aggressive dogs. A lot of our 24 calls, we'll send -- we'll have them send a police officer 25 out to make sure that we need to go out on it. We get a lot 8-23-04 13 1 of calls that -- "Well, this dog's really mean," and we 2 don't know. I mean, a lot of times it's not mean; they just 3 want us to come pick the dog up after hours. And we'll send 4 a police officer out there, and he says, "Oh, yeah, it's 5 mean; come on out." So, any -- mostly just assisting the 6 Sheriff's Office and the Police Department, and any animal 7 bites. 8 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Marc, you say this 9 is about an average year. So, for each of these categories, 10 number of animals handled, euthanized, reclassified, 11 adopted, it's about -- about the same as it's been the last 12 few years? 13 MR. ALLEN: Yeah. We still have two months 14 left, and August and September are really busy months for 15 us, so we don't -- it's kind of hard to predict what it's 16 going to be. But until summer's over -- I mean, we stay 17 pretty busy those last two months, especially when school's 18 just starting. We'll pick up more animals, 'cause kids are 19 putting dogs out and not putting them back; going to school 20 and forgetting about them. The numbers go up a little bit. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that why they call 22 it the dog days of summer? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. Boo. (Laughter.) 24 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What's been the 25 experience on registrations? 8-23-04 14 1 MR. ALLEN: Really good. This year, we've 2 sold 2,211 registrations, and we didn't start selling them 3 till January 1st. So my prediction was to sell at least 4 2,500; I think I'm going to beat that this year. We've 5 brought in $10,259 just on registrations alone since we 6 started selling the tags in January. Impounds, we brought 7 in $9,436. And this year we've -- we've separated impounds 8 from registrations, which in the past we didn't do that; it 9 all went into one line item. And last year alone, we had 10 $11,273. Now, there's -- it's going to be hard to separate 11 that, but there's an $8,000 difference that we've brought in 12 already this year, and like I say, we still got two months 13 left to go. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Your -- your operation covers 15 both city and county, does it not? 16 MR. ALLEN: That's correct. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Do you maintain records with 18 regard to your calls or activities that -- that designate 19 whether the call is a city call or outside-the-city call? 20 MR. ALLEN: We didn't in the past, but this 21 year we have done that. I can break it all down to what we 22 did in the city and what we did in the county. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What, generally, does 24 it show in -- in respect to your calls or your activities 25 with respect to in the city or outside the city of 8-23-04 15 1 Kerrville? 2 MR. ALLEN: It's still about -- well, some 3 months it's fifty-fifty, but its 60/40, about. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Overall? 5 MR. ALLEN: Yeah. 6 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: 60 city, 40 county? 7 MR. ALLEN: Yeah. But, like I said, these 8 numbers are going to change, and I won't have any exact 9 numbers until, you know, September 31st. And -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: But, to this point, as you've 11 averaged them from the beginning of last fiscal year, when 12 you started keeping these -- 13 MR. ALLEN: Right. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: -- these types of records, 15 they're averaging 60 percent city calls and 40 percent 16 out-of-city calls? 17 MR. ALLEN: Right. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 19 MR. ALLEN: That's about all I have. 20 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That's a good 21 report. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Appreciate it. 24 MR. ALLEN: Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Thank you, Marc. 8-23-04 16 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 2 MR. ALLEN: See y'all tomorrow. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: The next item on the agenda is 4 a status report on the Environmental Health Department 5 activities. Mr. Arreola? 6 MR. ARREOLA: Good morning. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning, sir. 8 MR. ARREOLA: I've got some little handouts, 9 please. First graphic that we have there is basically what 10 we have been doing this year, where the percentage of our 11 activities went, and compared to the last year. It's pretty 12 much the same. We have different activities this year, like 13 transfers are not being done -- real estate transfers. The 14 rest, it's good. We show that the new construction is still 15 being the number one item in our department, and this year 16 went up compared to last year. The repairs went down a 17 little bit. I think that is because of that transfer rule, 18 that we're not getting any -- that many systems to be 19 repaired. The rest look -- looks okay. The staff is 20 handling it real well, the amount of activities. It's okay. 21 Yes, sir? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: On your '03, does that also 23 include just the period from October 1 through July 31? 24 MR. ARREOLA: Correct. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: When you're using -- 8-23-04 17 1 MR. ARREOLA: It's all from October 31st to 2 July 31st on both. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Miguel, the 5 transfers, -- 6 MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir? 7 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- 115 for the 8 period last year and 93 for the period this year. Not a 9 significant change. What's -- transfer inspections are no 10 longer required. What's the impetus for that? Is it buyers 11 or sellers or realtors? Who -- who wants those transfers? 12 MR. ARREOLA: Basically, the economy. That's 13 what it -- that's what it mandates, how it's going. The 14 same with the new construction. If we have a lot of new 15 construction going on, we'll get a lot busier, so that's 16 something we depend on. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: The transfer rule was not 18 modified until, I believe, December of last year? 19 MR. ARREOLA: January. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Effective January 1. 21 MR. ARREOLA: Mm-hmm. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 MR. ARREOLA: So those numbers are for the 24 first three months on both years. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: And there have been some since 8-23-04 18 1 then -- some transfer activity since then? 2 MR. ARREOLA: We call it -- you know, 3 registrations is the next line down there. It's basically a 4 voluntary registration. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 6 MR. ARREOLA: So -- but the transfers were 7 compared with transfers of last year only. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: The registrations, do you see 9 those being driven in some measure by lender requirements? 10 MR. ARREOLA: That is basically what is 11 mandated. When they are required to -- to transfer the 12 documents, they come in. When they're not, they don't. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 14 MR. ARREOLA: The next graphic, it basically 15 shows revenue and total activity. We have done more in the 16 last year. We increased about 22 percent on total activity. 17 The revenues are up 20 percent. Non-fee activities, we're 18 pretty much the same, little bit higher -- 2 percent higher. 19 The average running per activity went a little bit -- it's 20 lower this year, 2 percent, 2 and a half percent. That is 21 basically because we're trying to do a little bit more 22 service. And a few items like -- thank you -- like the 23 expedite fees or research fees, we try to do it fast and 24 easy in the office without charging customers to do that, so 25 it's not a significant amount of revenue, but I think it's 8-23-04 19 1 positive for the -- for the image of the department. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Am I to understand that, 3 heretofore, maybe, your predecessor's operation may have 4 charged for an expediting fee, and you're trying to operate 5 your office such that the service is done within the time 6 period, and there's no need for a customer to pay an 7 extra -- an expediting fee? 8 MR. ARREOLA: Correct. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MR. ARREOLA: We're also trying to do -- when 11 the people need to know information about their license and 12 their files, we try do it right there in-house without 13 charging them to do a full research when we can. When we 14 cannot, we have to charge that fee, but we try not to. Do 15 you have any other questions on that one? 16 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I don't have a 17 question. I just -- just got an observation; that -- that I 18 don't hear near as much about O.S.S.F. as I did a year or so 19 ago from the builders or -- 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody. 21 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: -- owners. So, my 22 sense is things are going pretty well. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think, also -- I think 24 there was a -- we've been -- I mean, it's getting close to a 25 year now that the County's taken it over, and I think that 8-23-04 20 1 there were -- at the time we took it back, I heard a number 2 of comments that they didn't think we were going to be able 3 to do it in the way we said we wanted to do it, in a 4 positive way, but effective for the environment, and I think 5 we've done it, and I think Miguel should get a lot of -- or 6 all of the credit for that. He's done an excellent job 7 running the department. 8 MR. ARREOLA: At the beginning of the year, 9 we tried to make a projection of what will be our revenues. 10 We projected for 30 percent. We didn't quite make that 11 mark, but we did 20 percent -- 22 percent so far, and we 12 believe it's going to stay about that. And that's what I 13 think it will be next year also. Of course, depending on 14 the economy. If the economy continues to be the same, we 15 should be about the same, a little higher. On non-fee 16 activities, we have -- the number I gave you is only for 17 O.S.S.F. I do have numbers for Solid Waste also. To-date, 18 we have 115 complaints received and investigated. Of those, 19 we have closed 77, and we're still open on 35 -- 38 of them. 20 So, that's also a big -- big number. We've been so busy in 21 Solid Waste. That's basically what I have. I don't know if 22 have you any other questions. 23 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Well, we'll see you 24 tomorrow. 25 MR. ARREOLA: Okay. 8-23-04 21 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I do have one 2 question. 3 MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir? 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Miguel, I'm trying to 5 -- I'm trying to reconcile a couple numbers here. 6 MR. ARREOLA: Uh-huh. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just help me out a 8 little bit. It's not in the form of a complaint or anything 9 like that, but on this -- these sheets, you're showing '04 10 activities, total activity, that 496, various activities. 11 MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm looking on your 13 last sheet here, and the number of 543 -- 14 MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- pops up in terms 16 of what looks to me to be total activities. What -- 17 MR. ARREOLA: That's correct. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the 19 difference there? 20 MR. ARREOLA: The difference in there is I 21 decided not to include the lot charges for the subdivision 22 reviews. We are counting subdivision reviews as one item, 23 and for accounting purposes, they added that lot charge. We 24 charge $10 for each lot, depending on, you know, whatever 25 the plat is. And I didn't think it was a good reflection of 8-23-04 22 1 activity. It's basically that -- all the activity is just 2 one plat review. If you have five lots or ten lots, it's 3 one activity, so I didn't include that in both -- in both 4 years. I took that out from last year and took it out from 5 this year, and next year you should haven't that number. I 6 just got it when I was doing this, but I don't think it's 7 reflective. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, thank you. And 9 I want to add my comments with respect to the manner in 10 which your department has handled its task. I appreciate 11 it. I think you guys have done a good job, and the amount 12 of comments I've had with respect to O.S.S.F. or its 13 administration have been reduced to almost zero, so I think 14 that's -- that's a credit to you and a credit to the way in 15 which you've managed this department, and a credit to the 16 people who work under you and their willingness to do 17 cross-training and do other tasks. Are you going to address 18 Solid Waste when you get the budget? Or are you -- 19 MR. ARREOLA: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. So, we'll save 21 that for another day. Is that right? 22 MR. ARREOLA: That's correct. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody else have anything? 25 I, too, have heard virtually nothing. It's a classic "no 8-23-04 23 1 news is good news," you know. And -- because, previously, 2 we heard a lot of -- a lot of things about O.S.S.F., and 3 we're hearing virtually nothing, which means everything must 4 be going pretty good. We thank you for it. 5 MR. ARREOLA: Thank you very much. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, sir. 7 MR. ARREOLA: I really enjoy what I do, and 8 the people in the field, I think they're -- they're happy. 9 I don't have problems. We'll be all right. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you, Miguel. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not going to bring up for 13 consideration the next item on the agenda, at the request of 14 the -- the official who placed it there. We'll move on to 15 the next item; consider, discuss, and approval of the 16 telecommunications equipment lease for the Kerr County 17 Courthouse. Is Mr. Motley here? We may have to come back 18 to that one, 'cause I'm -- he had that under review, and I'm 19 not sure where he is. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, let me just ask 21 you a question about this. Is this a renewal? All these -- 22 the figures and the numbers, is this a renewal? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: I believe that's correct. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: And you don't -- I notice that 8-23-04 24 1 we don't have a base document. That's what's in the County 2 Attorney's hands. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. Well, you 4 know, Norstar, Nortel and all those words don't mean 5 anything to me. So, I -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the manufacturer of the 7 equipment. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: You have no reason to know 10 about that. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's exactly right. 12 And I -- you know, and I don't know if this is something new 13 we're looking at. Is that -- did we have Nortex last year, 14 and now we're going -- moving to Nortel? Or is this a 15 renewal? That's my question. Thank you. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll come back to that one as 17 necessary. Next item is consider and discuss authorizing 18 insurance request for proposals, with or without the 19 assistance of a consultant, for employee health benefit 20 plans for the coming year; alternatively, authorizing 21 procedure for interview and/or selection of a consultant. 22 If the members of the Court will recall, I don't know 23 whether it was last meeting or the meeting prior to that, we 24 discussed our other coverages, and I indicated that -- that 25 before time gets away from us, we were going to have to take 8-23-04 25 1 another look at the insurance -- the health benefits. I 2 think the first situation that we need to discuss is, are we 3 going to bring in a consultant from the get-go on the 4 request for proposal? If so, we probably need to come up 5 with some sort of a process to select that individual or 6 firm or organization or entity. If we're not going to use 7 that process, then we -- we need to go it on our own. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, my vote is that 9 we do, and Mr. -- I'm happy with Mr. Gray. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, I'm going to 11 weigh in on this. I don't want to get into that thicket one 12 more time without the benefit of a consultant, and my -- and 13 my view is, that consultant has to be with us from the 14 get-go. He has to help us formulate the request for 15 insurance -- first he has to evaluate what we have in place, 16 and probably take some comment from Commissioners as to what 17 they think the program should or should not be. He has to 18 help us formulate the RFP for insurance proposals, and then 19 he has to help us review those proposals. That's the only 20 way I'm going to begin this thing this time. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: You know, I think having the 22 benefit of a consultant is great. I would suggest handling 23 it on an early basis to allow some others that are in -- in 24 that field -- I know of at least two or three others, and at 25 least give them the opportunity to -- to indicate their 8-23-04 26 1 interest and make a proposal to us, tell us about their 2 experience and so forth. And then, if -- if we want to go 3 with who we've used in the past, we have that option -- and 4 assuming that individual has an interest. We don't know at 5 this point if he does. But I think we should give those in 6 the field the opportunity to at least make an expression of 7 interest to permit to us see what we want to do. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't have any problem 9 with that. My hesitation was kind of thinking about the 10 best way to proceed. I certainly agree, I think, probably 11 with both Commissioner Williams and Baldwin, from the 12 standpoint I don't want to get into this without advice from 13 the beginning again. I think it has not gone smoothly this 14 year, certainly. And I -- I see two ways of doing it. One, 15 we appoint a committee of two to interview consultants and 16 come back with a recommendation, or we can do it as a Court. 17 I mean, a lot of times it's more efficient to do interviews 18 with a committee of two to do some of these things. But 19 with the timing, you know, if we start going with -- setting 20 workshops and -- and, I mean, interviewing and all that, the 21 whole Court being involved with it, we're talking about a 22 month until we figure out who we want to hire. And then -- 23 I mean, in reality. And then it takes -- we really start 24 getting ourselves up against the time problem again. So, I 25 think I'd really prefer to appoint -- I don't know -- two 8-23-04 27 1 members to review consultants. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Come back to the Court with a 3 recommendation as to a consultant to assist the Court? That 4 would certainly be another option. 5 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Y'all said 6 everything would I say. I think time is critical. We need 7 to get on with it and not run out of time at the end. I 8 think we need help, and that we don't have the knowhow to do 9 it as well as it needs to be done. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd recommend 11 Commissioner Baldwin and Judge Tinley. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sounds good to me. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: To? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To be -- 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To interview consultants 17 and come back to the Court with a recommendation. And if 18 it's two recommendations you want to give the Court, that's 19 fine too. I mean, that way -- I mean, it doesn't make any 20 difference how many to you recommend, to me. Just that -- 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did -- did this good 22 rain last night do something to you? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Make me easy to get along 24 with? 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's not being easy 8-23-04 28 1 to get along with. 2 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Unlike last week? 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I do have a problem 4 with that. I don't have a problem with what you're saying, 5 but -- but do we not have to go out for RFP for consultants? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think so. I 7 think it's professional services. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I realize that. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. I don't think we 10 have to. I think we need to, you know, publish it in some 11 way, but I don't think you need a formal RFP. I don't know 12 how you do it, you know, but I think we need to -- 13 certainly, I'd recommend Mr. Gray; I think, he's done a real 14 good job, so we can contact him. I can't remember if the 15 Court's used, since I've been a Commissioner, anybody other 16 than Mr. Gray. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: I know of at least two others 18 that may be appropriate. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's go with your 20 suggestion, Commissioner Baldwin and the Judge. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Interview three 23 candidates and tell us -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Three or more. Three or more. 25 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: As many as they 8-23-04 29 1 want, and come back with a recommendation to the Court at 2 our next meeting. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Fine. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: You made a motion? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's -- that's a 6 motion. 7 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for a 9 committee of two, comprised of Commissioner Baldwin and 10 myself, to consider and interview or whatever consultants to 11 assist us, and come back to the Court with a recommendation. 12 Any further question or discussion? All in favor of the 13 motion, signify by raising your right hand. 14 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 16 (No response.) 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That wasn't very 19 enthusiastic raising your hand, Commissioner Baldwin. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You know, if y'all 21 would just pay attention, I can end this today. We'd be off 22 and running. And I can tell you, if we get bogged down in 23 selecting a guy and it looks like it's pushing, I will not 24 support going out for any bids, anything. I'm not going to. 25 This time frame thing is not going to push my vote up 8-23-04 30 1 against the door any more. It's going to be done in a 2 timely way, or not going to be done. 3 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I was very, very 4 frustrated last year, because I didn't think we had adequate 5 time to consider. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pick a consultant 7 quickly and come back. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I have picked mine. 9 I'm ready to go. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I thought I heard 11 that. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We have a -- did we vote? 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes. Just got through, yeah. 14 Let's come back to Item 6; consider, discuss, and consider 15 approval of the telecommunications equipment lease for the 16 Kerr County Courthouse. Mr. Motley, have you had an 17 opportunity to review that -- actually, that's a renewal of 18 a lease, is it not? 19 MR. MOTLEY: Right. I've reviewed it, and I 20 reviewed one that -- kind of a sister agreement that was 21 proposed between Advanced Tel-Com Systems and -- well, if I 22 got the name right -- and Road and Bridge. I'm real 23 familiar with it. I've written up my -- my areas of 24 concern. I've just not talked with the representative of 25 the phone company on that. And I probably should have; I 8-23-04 31 1 kind of forgot it was on the agenda today. But, in any 2 event, it's -- it's something I need to do, but there's kind 3 of a list of a lot of things I need to do. Kerrville 4 Telephone, I need to talk to Mr. Stacy over there. And I -- 5 we've talked in generalities about it, but I haven't gotten 6 down -- I got an agreement, I marked it up and typed a 7 letter and everything, just haven't talked to him. So, I 8 just need to do that. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: There are some issues that you 10 still have unresolved with the other party? 11 MR. MOTLEY: Yeah -- well, and they're not 12 very serious issues; kind of minor issues, to be honest. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: But at this point, they're 14 unresolved? 15 MR. MOTLEY: I would say so. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Why don't we pass that, 17 then. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just want to ask 19 one question. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm sorry. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll direct it to 22 Tommy, basically. This is for renewal for equipment 23 in-house; is that correct? Individual telephones at each 24 station and so forth? 25 MR. TOMLINSON: It's a maintenance agreement 8-23-04 32 1 on the system that we have in place right now. You'll 2 notice there's an inventory -- 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 4 MR. TOMLINSON: -- of items. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 6 MR. TOMLINSON: Well, we -- we had the phone 7 company's representative to come in, inventory all the 8 equipment, and that's -- this is the result of that -- of 9 that inventory. We had -- I think we initially had a 10 five-year maintenance agreement with -- with the company. 11 That's expired, and we -- we need to have something in place 12 for maintenance on the system. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do we own this 14 equipment now? 15 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, we do. 16 MR. MOTLEY: I was thinking that this was a 17 lease purchase -- what I was looking at was actually an 18 agreement -- a contract for lease-purchase of equipment 19 that's in place and has already gone through one contract 20 cycle with the people at the -- what I'm looking at in here 21 is not what I've been reviewing. This is just like some 22 kind of a listing of stuff. But, in any event, I -- 23 MR. TOMLINSON: I think that's -- I'm 24 mistaken. That is right. We were on a pure -- we're on a 25 lease agreement. 8-23-04 33 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, is there a 2 deadline for this document? 3 JUDGE TINLEY: If it's operating the same as 4 the one out at Extension Service that we recently approved, 5 it automatically went to the new lower rate, and so we're 6 not prejudiced by failing to act on it. And I believe this 7 one's the same way; is that not correct? 8 MR. MOTLEY: That's right. There's no -- the 9 agreement is in operation. There's no stated deadline. I 10 mean, it needs to be done, but no stated deadline. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on that issue? 12 Let's move on to Item 10, if we might, then. Consider and 13 discuss confirmation of appointment of members at large for 14 the Kerrville/Kerr County Joint Airport Board. This is a 15 matter that Commissioner Williams and Commissioner Letz have 16 been deeply immersed in, so I'll let them decide who's going 17 to run with the ball here. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is pretty simple. I 19 think we probably actually had authority at our last motion 20 to do it, but the agreement is very specific that the 21 Commissioners Court and City Council have to approve the 22 at-large members. And the current -- Commissioner Williams 23 and myself and the mayor and Councilman Smith had a meeting, 24 and came up with the list of John Davis on a three-year 25 term, Roger Bobertz on a one-year term, and Granger 8-23-04 34 1 MacDonald on a two-year term. Staggered terms are required 2 by the agreement. I'll make a motion that we approve. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 5 approval of -- of those designated individuals for their 6 respective terms, and that the Court confirm the same. Any 7 further question or discussion? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Question. Is this 9 another step toward the final product? Or is this knocking 10 on the door? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is the final -- this 12 is the final step. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This is the final 14 step. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Actually, the 16 final-final will be taken tonight at -- tomorrow night at 17 City Council when they do the same thing, and then we'll 18 have a seven-person board in place. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's almost the 20 final-final. One other thing we have to -- the board -- 21 then the seven-man board has to get -- the City has to sign 22 the operating agreement. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, they have to. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that doesn't come 25 back to us. 8-23-04 35 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And choose a chair. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And choose a chair. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, we're about done? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're about done. The 5 only thing, too, we're going to -- 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We're rounding third 7 base. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The only thing that's 9 going to probably be a little bit of discussion, I think, at 10 our first meeting, the full board, is looking back at the 11 agreement and figuring out exactly what the board does and 12 what has to come back to the City and the County. 13 There's -- you know, there's -- you try and make agreements 14 as -- to cover all things. And the next agenda item is one 15 that I'm not sure needs to come here, but I'm not sure it 16 doesn't, either. So, anyway, doesn't hurt to put things on 17 the agenda to get approval of the City and County 18 Commissioners Court. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Next agenda item 20 won't be coming back in the future like this. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I wouldn't think so. 22 But, anyway, we're almost there, to answer your question. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's exciting. 24 Big-time move. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We did it. 8-23-04 36 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 2 Congratulations. Thank you. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further questions or 4 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 5 your right hand. 6 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 7 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 8 (No response.) 9 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Let's 10 go to Item 11, consider, discuss, and approval of a joint 11 resolution authorizing Texas Department of Transportation to 12 enter into eminent domain proceedings for the purpose of 13 acquiring real estate to protect airport approaches and 14 proceed with airport improvements, and authorize County 15 Judge to sign all documents to accomplish all land 16 acquisitions associated with that TexDOT project, being 17 Number 0315KERVL. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does this need to go in 19 executive session? 20 MS. BAILEY: Yes, it does. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pardon? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Executive session. 23 MS. BAILEY: It's litigation. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought it did. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Move it into exec. 8-23-04 37 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, we're going to have to 2 come back to that one, then, also. I suspect, at this 3 point, we want to start taking some things out of the way. 4 Even though, apparently, the folks are here on the 5 10 o'clock timed item, in deference to members of the public 6 that may have relied upon this posting, I'd hate to start on 7 it before the time that it's designated, so I'm reluctant to 8 do that. So, why don't we go with our housekeeping portion 9 of the agenda, then, and go to Section 4. Mr. Auditor, are 10 you ready to go? 11 MR. TOMLINSON: I'm ready. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: The first item that we have on 13 that is the payment of the bills. 14 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move to pay the 15 bills. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion's been made and 18 seconded to pay the bills. Any question or discussion? I 19 think I had a couple of tabs here that I may have had a 20 question on that I didn't get resolved. Had one item on 21 Page 6, under Sheriff's Department budget. Custom body 22 armor? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's our half of a 24 grant payment for bulletproof vests. We get the bulletproof 25 vest grant every year; we have a matching part that was in 8-23-04 38 1 the budget to do that. It was asked for last year and it 2 was budgeted. We just finally got them in. Just 3 replacement vests. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. The other question I 5 have is on Page 15, the Landata, $14,999. That's the new 6 licensing going into that new system that you had talked 7 about implementing this coming budget year, but instead did 8 it out of your Records Management budget for this year, 9 Ms. Pieper? 10 MS. PIEPER: Right. That is correct. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. That's all the 12 questions I have. Any further question or discussion? All 13 in favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 14 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 15 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 16 (No response.) 17 JUDGE TINLEY: The motion does carry. Let's 18 go to budget amendments. Budget Amendment Request Number 1. 19 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 1, I have a request 20 from the County Clerk for the transfer $390.20 from 21 Operating Expenses to Machine Repairs. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait, wait, wait. It 24 comes from where and goes where? 25 MR. TOMLINSON: Comes from -- I'm sorry. 8-23-04 39 1 That's -- this is not our form, so I'm -- it's backwards 2 from what we're used to doing. It comes from Machine Repair 3 and is transferred to -- $390.20 into Operating Expenses. 4 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 6 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 1. Any further 7 question or discussion? All in favor, signify by raising 8 your right hand. 9 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 11 (No response.) 12 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 13 Budget Amendment Request Number 2. 14 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 2 is for the 198th 15 District Court. The request to transfer $100 from Special 16 Trials to Books, Publications, and Dues. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 18 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Second. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 20 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 2. Any question 21 or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 22 raising your right hand. 23 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 25 (No response.) 8-23-04 40 1 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 2 Budget Amendment Request 3. 3 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 3 is from the District 4 Clerk. She's requesting a transfer of $449.80 from Group 5 Insurance, $131.39 to Microfilm Expense, and $318.41 to 6 Lease Copier line item. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 10 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 3. Any question 11 or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 12 raising your right hand. 13 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 15 (No response.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 17 Budget Amendment Request 4. 18 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 4 is a request from 19 Roy Walston and Ag Extension to transfer $700 from Group 20 Insurance to Office Supplies. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So moved. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 24 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 4. Any 25 questions or discussion? 8-23-04 41 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, it just seems 2 to me that $700 is an awful lot of money to be putting in 3 office supplies this time of the year. We're talking about 4 pencils and paper clips and things like that? Or are there 5 other things out there that -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Based on the current -- 7 the original budget amount, it's got to be -- it's got to be 8 some -- I'm thinking copier paper or computer paper, 9 something. It's -- $5,500 is pretty big item for -- I 10 hadn't thought about it. I noticed the same thing. But I'm 11 not -- some of the departments have consolidated a lot of 12 those into operating supplies, and some haven't. 13 MR. TOMLINSON: Right. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or 15 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 16 your right hand. 17 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 19 (No response.) 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 21 Budget Amendment Request Number 5. 22 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 5 is for the Jail and 23 Sheriff's Department. First part of it is for the Jail, to 24 transfer $1,384.51 from Group Insurance, $47 to Vehicle 25 Maintenance and $1,337.51 to Operating Supplies. For the 8-23-04 42 1 Sheriff's Office, the request is to transfer $8,343.08 from 2 Deputies Salary, $331.75 to Operating Expenses, $4,248.57 to 3 Vehicle Gas and Oil, $2,756.76 to Vehicle Repairs and 4 Maintenance, and $1,006 to Maintenance Contracts. I do have 5 -- have a request for a hand check to Identix for $7,006. 6 It's for the maintenance contract renewal on the 7 fingerprinting system. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What system? 9 MR. TOMLINSON: Fingerprinting system. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Second. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 13 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 5, and authorize 14 issuance of a hand check to Identix for $1,006. Any further 15 question or discussion? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Seven thousand. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: $7,006? 18 MR. TOMLINSON: Yes, that's correct. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How -- how does seven 20 thousand -- oh, I see it there. Nevermind. Good. What is 21 Operating Supplies in your mind, Sheriff? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Everything that we use. 23 It covers papers; it covers all your pencils and pens, 24 covers forms when we order forms, ticket books, a lot of 25 that type of stuff. 8-23-04 43 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, a lot of things 2 you order on the tail end of year, and -- 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: As corrected to $7,006 for the 5 hand check. Any further question or discussion? All in 6 favor of the motion, signify by raising your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 11 Budget Amendment Request Number 6. 12 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 6 is a request from 13 Constable, Precinct 3, to transfer $29.60 from Office 14 Supplies to Postage. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So moved. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Second. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 18 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 6. Any further 19 question or discussion? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It seems that he goes 21 totally the opposite direction that everybody else does. 22 That's good. He's doing a good job. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Any further question or 24 discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by raising 25 your right hand. 8-23-04 44 1 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 3 (No response.) 4 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 5 Budget Amendment Request Number 7. 6 MR. TOMLINSON: Number 7 is for Justice of 7 the Peace, Precinct 4. His request is to transfer 3,000 -- 8 I mean $300 from Machine Repairs to Utilities. 9 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Move to approve. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 12 approval of Budget Amendment Request Number 7. Any question 13 or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify by 14 raising your right hand. 15 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 16 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 17 (No response.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Do we 19 have any late bills, Mr. Auditor? 20 MR. TOMLINSON: No. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I have before me the 22 transcripts of the Kerr County Commissioners Court regular 23 session, Monday, July 12th, 2004, and the Kerr County 24 Commissioners Court special session of Monday, July 26th, 25 2004. Do I hear a motion that those transcripts be approved 8-23-04 45 1 as submitted? 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So moved. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 5 approval. Any further question or discussion? All in favor 6 of that motion, signify by raising your right hand. 7 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 9 (No response.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: I also have before me reports 11 from Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3; District Clerk; 12 Justice of the Peace, Precinct Number 1; County Clerk; 13 District Clerk, annotated as an end of July report; and the 14 County Extension Agent. Do I hear a motion that those 15 reports be approved as submitted? 16 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So moved. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded for 19 approval of the designated reports as submitted. Any 20 question or discussion? All in favor of the motion, signify 21 by raising your right hand. 22 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 23 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 24 (No response.) 25 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. Looks 8-23-04 46 1 like we're about to run out of rope here. Why don't we go 2 ahead and take a break until about -- oh, say five to ten 3 after the hour. We'll start with the 10 o'clock timed item 4 at that time. 5 (Recess taken from 9:52 a.m. to 10:10 a.m.) 6 - - - - - - - - - - 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come back to 8 order, if we could, please. We went into recess a bit 9 before 10 o'clock, to reconvene at 10:10. It's now that 10 time. We have a timed item, Number 8, consider and discuss 11 2005 Texas County and District Systems Plan rate and 12 potential plan changes. We have a representative from 13 T.C.D.R.S. system, I believe, with us today. Ms. Nemec? 14 MS. NEMEC: Yes, Judge. At one of the 15 previous budget workshops, I had given you all some 16 information on cost-of-living for retirees, and I felt that 17 this was a great year for the Court to consider that, since 18 our rates are going down from 7.97 to 7.61. And ever since 19 we've been on the plan, the retirees have not received a 20 cost-of-living increase. I had told you all at that time 21 that I would come back with more information, so what I did 22 was, I called a rep from the retirement system, and he's 23 here to give you some numbers to help you make an informed 24 decision on this agenda item. And I'll just pass this out 25 to you. José? 8-23-04 47 1 MR. DELEON: Thank you. Morning. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Morning. 3 MR. DELEON: Few things I'll talk about, 4 since Barbara had me come over here and talk to you about 5 cost-of-living increases. One thing I will say is that -- a 6 little history behind them. In the retirement system, 7 unlike other retirement systems, the retirement system as a 8 whole, once somebody retires, they don't have automatic 9 built-in increases. In other words, if -- if the County 10 never allows for an increase, then the person receiving the 11 pension, or the annuitant, will always receive the same 12 amount for as long as they live. In the old days -- this is 13 back in the '80's -- the system used to do cost-of-living 14 increases as a whole, and -- but those were system-wide. 15 Some of those increases actually affected some of the Kerr 16 County annuitants that are receiving annuities today, but 17 not all of them. So, anybody past '86 has not received a 18 cost-of-living increase for Kerr County. So -- but just a 19 little history; in the old days, they used to do that. 20 But that -- that practice has gone pretty 21 much by the wayside, and now what we do is we allow every 22 employer -- which is every county or district in our 23 system -- to decide that for themselves, whether they want 24 to approve cost-of-living increases or not. There are 25 essentially two types of -- for the longest time, there was 8-23-04 48 1 only one type of increase, and that was the CPI-based 2 increase, the C.P.I. standing for the Consumer Price Index, 3 which is pretty much tied with inflation. The newest form 4 was adopted, I think, in 19 -- or 2000. 1999 Legislature; 5 started off in 2000, and that was the flat rate increase. 6 Okay. So, there's two ways to provide increases to benefit 7 your retirees. I'm going to talk about both. Do you have 8 any questions on how they work? 'Cause each of them has a 9 different purpose, and each of them could work differently, 10 for -- depending on the annuitants or the beneficiaries that 11 are receiving annuities today. 12 The first type is the easiest type, and 13 that's the newest one they got. That got created about four 14 years ago. That's the flat-rate COLA. Now, that one's 15 pretty easy. You adopt a flat rate, say 5 percent, and 16 every eligible annuitant -- which includes retirees -- or 17 beneficiary will receive a 5 percent increase. So, in the 18 example that you're holding there, if you look at the flat 19 rate over here, if you have an increased basis of 1,000 -- 20 or 5 percent, excuse me, and everyone's making 1,000, every 21 eligible annuitant or beneficiary will receive what is a 22 5 percent increase; in this case, 1,050. Pretty simple. 23 Pretty straightforward. That one, though, is based on the 24 current annuity amount. And that's important to say, 25 because sometimes the current annuity and the original 8-23-04 49 1 annuity are different. Because if you have -- if a person 2 has had increases before, their original annuity is actually 3 going to be lower than their current annuity. 4 So, the flat rates -- flat-rate increase is 5 based on the current amount, so if you do 5 percent this 6 year, guy gets a 5 percent increase, or if he's making 7 $1,000, he has $1,050. If do you another increase next 8 year -- and before I go on, these type of increases are 9 one-time increases, but the benefit is not one-time. So, in 10 other words, if you do an increase this year -- say, a 11 5 percent increase -- annuitants' increases would be at 12 5 percent, but they would keep that benefit for as long as 13 they live, for as long as the pension is paid. So, you 14 don't have to adopt these every year. Not -- you can do 15 that if you want to, and have a practice that every year 16 you -- you come and, you know, propose another increase. 17 And then what would happen in this case is, if you -- if you 18 propose another flat rate in the future, then that person 19 would get 5 percent on their current. 20 So, if you think about it, if you do that 21 every year, that would be 5 percent on 5 percent on 5 22 percent until the guy pretty much dies. So, that's the way 23 that one works. What's important to stress is that that 24 flat rate is based on the current annuity amount. So if, 25 you know, you got this group of retirees and you're doing 8-23-04 50 1 5 percent or whatever a year, if they never die, you're 2 pretty much increasing those benefits every year by 3 5 percent what you're paying now. These are ad hoc 4 increases, which means that they're not proposed, so there 5 is a potential increase in rate to the contribution that you 6 pay to T.C.D.R.S. when you adopt these. So, we can go over 7 that later, but I just want to go ahead and make sure that 8 you understand how flat rate works. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me interrupt you, if I 10 might -- 11 MR. DELEON: Sure. Please. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: -- on that point. On a flat 13 rate percentage increase -- 14 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: -- if that, for example, is 16 adopted by this Court, that would be for the coming year 17 only at the increased contribution rate as specified. It 18 has no bearing on what would occur in years following? 19 MR. DELEON: That is correct. It's only for 20 those eligible beneficiaries and annuitants at that time. 21 So, if -- say I retired this year, or this upcoming year; I 22 was somebody eligible to retire and I could retire. If I do 23 so, this increase has no effect on my benefit. It's only 24 for those people that are eligible -- that are already 25 retired and are eligible for benefit. So, in essence, 8-23-04 51 1 anybody that retired, for a COLA or cost-of-living 2 adjustment effective 2005 -- 'cause they're effective the 3 beginning of the year. It's anyone who retired December 4 2003 or before. So, you know, anyone that retired this year 5 is not going to see a 5 percent increase on their benefit. 6 And -- and, you know, subsequently, anybody 7 that retires, say 2005 or 2006, if you don't do any other 8 increases in the future, they would never see a 5 percent 9 increase. So, that's what we mean by one-time. It's kind 10 of catching those people, that window, and those people 11 only, and that's it. So, you're not pretty much increasing 12 benefits for people going into the future. That's kind of 13 the way that works. I mean, there's two ways to increase 14 benefits for employees, those that are currently working and 15 those that are retired. For those that are retired, it's 16 this way, you know, where it's increasing their annuity 17 amounts. For those that are actually working, then you 18 increase the match rate; you provide better retirement rules 19 and so on. But, yeah, you're absolutely right. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: But the other way that applies 21 to the current workers, would that also benefit the current 22 retirees? 23 MR. DELEON: No. See, they don't work the 24 other way, so if you increase the match rate, that wouldn't 25 benefit anybody that's already retired, receiving a pension. 8-23-04 52 1 So, the only way you would increase the benefit for those 2 that are actually receiving a pension would be this way, 3 would be to provide ad hoc post-retirement annuities. So 4 that's kind of the way to distinguish between increasing 5 benefits from one end or the other. Good question. So, 6 that -- anyway, that's the way flat rate works. Again, it's 7 based on the current annuity amount. 8 Now, the second way, which is the -- the one 9 that's been in place, you know, the longest time -- I think 10 since the early '90's -- is the CPI-based COLA. This one is 11 specifically tied to inflation, and what it says is that 12 every retiree or every person that's eligible for a pension 13 will receive an increase equal to a percentage of the 14 cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index. So, I'll 15 repeat that in English. The way that works is that if 16 somebody's been retired, say, since 1992, and that person -- 17 say their cumulative change in the Consumer Price Index has 18 been 30 percent, so if we had an index of 100 here, the 19 index has increased to 130, so that's a 30 percent increase 20 in the index. Then that person would get a percentage, 21 depending on how -- what the Court approves, of that C.P.I. 22 change. 23 Say we take, for example, the one -- the 24 example I have in front of you there; everyone is making 25 $1,000, and everyone's making the same amount. But if you 8-23-04 53 1 do a 50 percent C.P.I. increase, what the Court is saying is 2 that, for every person that's been retired, we're going to 3 calculate what their C.P.I. -- cumulative change in the 4 C.P.I. has been since they've been retired. We're going to 5 offer them a 50 percent percentage on that increase. So, in 6 this case, if you take the person that's been retired the 7 longest, that person's going to get the highest percentage 8 increase. Not necessarily the highest percentage -- not 9 necessarily the highest increase amount, but just 10 percentage-wise. The theory is that what you're trying to 11 do is you're trying to catch up people to what the C.P.I. or 12 the inflation rate is doing. In this case, if you authorize 13 50 percent, it's 50 percent of that inflation. You can go 14 anywhere between 30 to 80. I just took 50 there, 'cause it 15 seems pretty easy to explain. But that's really what you're 16 doing. This used to be called in the old days a catch-up 17 COLA, 'cause what you're trying to do is you're trying to 18 catch up people's annuities to what inflation has eroded, or 19 the benefits that have been eroded by inflation, 20 essentially. So, this one, if you had a -- a lot of 21 retirees who've been retired a long time, it's easy to see 22 that this -- this one would be a great benefit for them, 23 because they've had -- actually had the most exposure to 24 inflation, as opposed to somebody that retired -- in the 25 example there, somebody that retired in 2002, hasn't been 8-23-04 54 1 exposed to inflation as much. Does that kind of make sense? 2 I've tried to simplify that in the easiest way. I -- 3 JUDGE TINLEY: This would apply to those 4 persons who are presently retirees, or current workers that 5 are under the system, or both? 6 MR. DELEON: Again, present retirees. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Only? 8 MR. DELEON: Yes. This -- this would apply 9 to anybody that's been retired, that has an effective 10 retirement date of 12-31-2003 or before. Anybody that 11 retires, you know, after that, like now or later, this COLA 12 won't apply to them, unless you do another one in the 13 future. Let's say next year you do the same thing. 14 Essentially, what you would be doing is you'd be authorizing 15 the C.P.I. increase for only one year, because you've 16 already provided that for the past -- for everyone in the 17 past already. So, this doesn't apply for anybody that's -- 18 that's going to retire or that's presently retired after 19 12-31-2003. So, remember what I said earlier; the increase 20 is one-time. In other words, the authorization is a 21 one-time increase, but the benefit is permanent. And if you 22 wanted to increase the benefit again, you would have to do 23 another one-time increase and another one-time increase. 24 So, if you -- if -- essentially, if you think about it, if 25 you did a 50 percent COLA every year and you authorized it, 8-23-04 55 1 what you're doing is that you're telling everyone that's 2 retired, that's eligible, that you're going to provide a 3 benefit that will provide a 50 percent of C.P.I. increase 4 every year. So, whatever inflation is doing, we're going to 5 try to catch you up 50 percent every year. That's kind of 6 what that's doing. The theory -- 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, in our case, it 8 would only require one retroactive action. 9 MR. DELEON: Yes. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One retroactive, 11 catch-up action. 12 MR. DELEON: Yes. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And subsequent 14 courts, then, would -- would deal with the C.P.I. on an 15 as-is basis. 16 MR. DELEON: That's exactly right. Let's 17 take, for example -- say I retired this year. If you did 18 this 50 percent COLA, it wouldn't apply to me, okay? But 19 say a court five, ten years down the road decides to do one, 20 and they hadn't done it before. Then that one would apply 21 to me up to now, whatever that case would be, and it'll 22 apply to everybody else that needs the COLA. This one's 23 based on the original annuity, and that's -- sometimes it -- 24 it's cost-saving in a way, because you're not increasing on 25 top of an increase on top of an increase. We just go back 8-23-04 56 1 to the original amount, calculate what the change in C.P.I. 2 was, and give you an increase based on that, so we don't top 3 one increase on top of another increase. So -- and it's 4 directly tied pretty much to inflation. So, it's sometimes 5 difficult to explain, but in concept it's easy to -- it's 6 easy to really understand. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, let me draw you 8 out on what you just said. 9 MR. DELEON: Sure. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, if we did a 11 retroactive -- made this adjustment for all of our retirees 12 from the get-go till now, -- 13 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- and that 15 adjustment had taken place, are you saying that any 16 subsequent adjustments are not based on the total that that 17 retiree has? Or only based on the original annuitant 18 amount? 19 MR. DELEON: Yeah. Yeah. Say, for example, 20 somebody that -- I'll take this -- let me take that first 21 example. Ms. Rosalind there retired in 1998 -- it's 22 fictitious, but to prove a point. This person -- if you did 23 a 50 percent increase, in this example, they would get a 24 29 percent or almost 30 percent increase. So, essentially, 25 what we're saying is that the C.P.I. since she's been 8-23-04 57 1 retired has pretty much changed 30 percent -- or 60 percent, 2 but you're only offering half of that. So, in the future, 3 what will happen if do you a subsequent increase, then the 4 increase would be from the last increase to the current 5 increase, if it's the same amount. So, if it's another 50, 6 it would be this, because you already provided this, see? 7 So -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I got you. 9 MR. DELEON: -- you take a nice big hit in 10 the beginning, but then it's pretty much softened, because 11 you're only doing an increase tied to the C.P.I. Inflation 12 lately has been around 30 percent or so, so even if you're 13 doing 50 percent, you're doing about a one and a half 14 increase. But at least you have the backing that you're 15 doing something to at least provide for those eroded 16 benefits. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 18 MR. DELEON: The other one would be -- the 19 flat rate would be based on the current, so if you did an 20 increase, then a 5 percent increase would be on top of the 21 increase that you're doing. That's what I'm trying to say; 22 that this one's more based on -- on time -- more 23 time-sensitive. Does that kind of make sense? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mm-hmm. 25 MR. DELEON: Those are the types -- two 8-23-04 58 1 types. 2 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Question for you. 3 MR. DELEON: Yes, sir? 4 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: What's your 5 experience with other counties and districts who have a 6 situation similar to ours? What are they doing? 7 MR. DELEON: Well, with -- with 8 cost-of-living adjustments, and the research that I've done 9 there, we have a -- we have a lot of what we call repeat 10 offenders. And it's nothing to do with people breaking the 11 law, but has to do with people that, once they do one, they 12 pretty much do that every year. They authorize it, or they 13 skip a year or two, come back a year later, and the future 14 court does that. Right now, the -- the breakdown of who 15 does what, there's about 80 counties and districts combined 16 that provide cost-of-living increases. It's pretty much 17 broken down to have -- I think 39, little bit more, offer 18 the C.P.I. rather than the flat. But, I mean, it's pretty 19 even. It really depends on their needs. And, like I say, 20 in a newer district, somebody that just has new retirees, 21 well, they could do a -- a CPI-based, but then we would only 22 provide, like, a 1 percent increase or so for them, but 23 since they have recent -- new retirees, sometimes they would 24 decide they want to go with a flat rate, because it just 25 seems fair, since everybody retired recently. 8-23-04 59 1 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: So, do most counties 2 not provide for increases? 3 MR. DELEON: No, sir. I mean, a huge 4 percentage of our counties do not do that. I mean, that is 5 correct. There's only -- we have 540 active employers, but 6 only 80 provide that, so -- do the math -- it's a little bit 7 less than 20 percent that actually provide the benefit like 8 this. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: How long have you had this -- 10 these increase programs in place? 11 MR. DELEON: We've had these -- the 12 CPI-based, we've had it since -- I'm not sure; either the 13 late '80's or early '90's. Early '90, '91, if not late 14 '80's. The flat rate just was created by the 75th 15 Legislature, I think 1999, so it was effective 2000. So, 16 the flat rate is rather new. The C.P.I. has been in place, 17 you know, for quite a long time. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: And -- but your retirement 19 system has been in place since when? 20 MR. DELEON: Since 1968, sir. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So what I'm trying to 22 get to, you say out of 500-plus qualified systems -- 23 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: -- enrollees -- 25 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 8-23-04 60 1 JUDGE TINLEY: -- you've got only 80. You've 2 been in existence since the 60's, and the first one only 3 came into being, at the earliest, the late '80's, probably 4 early 90's. The other one just came into being about five 5 years ago. You don't think that -- that the '80's are the 6 standstill; that it's not going to increase based upon 7 the -- the track record here, do you? 8 MR. DELEON: I don't have exact figures on 9 that. I do have some speculation, and part of it is -- one, 10 our system is rather -- it's only 30 years old, so the 11 people came in; by the time '80 rolled around, people 12 started retiring people. So, especially smaller counties -- 13 some counties didn't come into the retirement system till, 14 you know, 1980. There's some that didn't come in till '85. 15 The other thing is, we have a lot of new districts that have 16 come in, so, you know, we've had -- since '97 or so, about 17 50 or so districts have come into our system, so it'll take 18 some time for them to actually get retirees. But, aside 19 from the numbers, I think the -- the most important thing 20 is, on our part, I don't think we've actually -- I like to 21 point the finger at the retirement system, because -- and 22 that's me, too. I mean, we -- I don't think we did a good 23 job of communicating these type of increases or benefits 24 before to our employers. So I think it was, one, mostly 25 lack of communication. We didn't really communicate these 8-23-04 61 1 kind of benefits to employers the way we're doing now. 2 So -- that's what I like to think. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Our current 4 contribution rate is 7.97? 5 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: And this coming year, that 7 contribution rate is going to decrease to 7.61? 8 MR. DELEON: That's correct. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: So, in essence, that leaves us 10 36 hundredths of -- of a percentage point that we've got 11 excess, based upon what we've been dealing with. 12 MR. DELEON: Yes, you can consider that that 13 way. Some -- some people decide that they want to increase 14 benefits when -- when rates go down. Others decide to put 15 more money in. But, yes, I mean, based on what you're 16 contributing now, your rate did go down 36 basis points from 17 last year's -- this year's rate. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, we could do the 19 50 percent of C.P.I. increase at 7.9; is that right? 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, we can get that 21 in under the 36. It's .29 and .36. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 23 MR. DELEON: The -- let me check my numbers 24 here. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 8-23-04 62 1 MR. DELEON: The 50 percent of C.P.I. is .29, 2 which is -- which C.P.I. are we talking about? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 50 percent. 4 MR. DELEON: That's .29, so that would be -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 3.9. 6 MR. DELEON: -- 7.9, yeah. 7 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: How many retirees do 8 we have, Barbara? 9 MS. NEMEC: Seventy. 10 MR. DELEON: Seventy. Now, it won't 11 affect -- if you do the -- I gave her a list of -- of all 12 your 70 retirees. I felt it was -- in the beginning, when I 13 started talking, I mentioned that in the old days, the 14 retirement system used to do system-wide COLA's. Well, 15 there was some retirees that had pre -- or retired before 16 1986. Some of these people would not be eligible for these 17 -- for these increases, because the increases they received 18 in the past were -- were so high that -- that the C.P.I. 19 still is below what the -- the new calculated increase is 20 actually lower than what the regular amount is. So -- we're 21 never going to bring somebody below what they're making, 22 so -- but they wouldn't be eligible for an increase. 23 Anybody that retired after '86, I believe, in that case -- 24 MS. NEMEC: Right. There's 14 of them. 25 MR. DELEON: Yeah. Would be eligible. 8-23-04 63 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Fourteen since '86 that this 2 would be applicable? 3 MS. NEMEC: Fourteen that were -- that 4 retired prior to '86 that this does not affect. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, 56 would be 6 applicable. 7 MR. DELEON: Yes. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, there was a 9 question here. 10 MR. DELEON: Because these guys received 11 already increases in the past, and those increases are 12 greater than the new cumulative increase that's provided 13 under the -- in this case, 40 percent the C.P.I., but I 14 could go back and recalculate it at 50. Some of those may 15 actually have an increase. Who knows? But I brought the -- 16 only the 40 percent there; I didn't bring the 50. But under 17 the 40 percent, there's a few there that won't be eligible. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: But current indications are 19 we'd have at least 56 that -- 20 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that would obtain some 22 benefit from a 50 percent C.P.I. increase? 23 MR. DELEON: Yes, sir. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Pretty good. The -- what 25 causes the rate to go down? 8-23-04 64 1 MR. DELEON: That's a very good question. 2 There's three things that -- that -- there's a lot of 3 things, actually, but three main things that cause the rate 4 to either go up or down. Three things to look at from -- 5 from -- you know, I'll begin by saying it this way. These 6 rates are the estimations of costs. The actual cost of the 7 plan is not known. We won't know that till the last person 8 receives the last check and dies. So, before we can even do 9 that, the only way -- the only thing we have in front of us 10 is an estimate. So, by nature, any estimate is going to be 11 wrong. The question is, how much? And that's what these 12 variations are. And the reason the rate goes up and down 13 from year to year is because there'll be variations in 14 assumptions. 15 The three main assumptions that really are -- 16 are key, one is the investment return assumption. That 17 is -- that is really, by far, one of the most important 18 assumptions in the retirement system. The employer -- as 19 employees or members of the system, you get credit at 20 7 percent, your employee accounts. That's not the same 21 thing for the employer. The way the design is, the employer 22 bears pretty much all the risk, if not all of it. The 23 employer -- employee really doesn't bear any risk. So, an 24 investment return -- our target return is 8 percent every 25 year. If we make 8 percent, then that assumption is met. 8-23-04 65 1 If we make above 8 percent, then there will be a favorable 2 experience. That's what actually brought the rate down a 3 little bit this past year, because we had a better 4 experience than in years before. 5 The second assumption is a termination 6 assumption. I think a lot of people can relate to this one. 7 A lot of county people know this one very well, and that has 8 to do with people leaving, you know, employment and taking 9 their money out and going elsewhere. When they do that, 10 what happens is that they take their -- the employer's 11 liability pretty much is done when somebody takes the money 12 out. That's another assumption. So if you have more people 13 take their money out than what's expected, that's a gain. 14 Vice-versa, that's a loss. So, it's a variation. And the 15 third one is payroll, which, of the three, is probably the 16 least. But it could be -- it could be a big one, depending 17 on the size of your county. So, if you had a big jail 18 disperse and you had all those employees leave, then that's 19 going to -- 'cause these rates are based on employer 20 payroll, so what that's going to cause, that's going to 21 cause that payroll to be lower. But, again, you have a gain 22 if people take their money out, because now they have a 23 chance to... So, basically, the first two are the most 24 important ones, the termination and the investment return. 25 In this past year, you've had favorable experience in both, 8-23-04 66 1 so, that's one of the reasons why your rate went down. Did 2 that answer the question? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, thank you. 4 MR. DELEON: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's a -- I'm in 6 favor of -- I like the C.P.I. approach, personally, better 7 than the flat rate one. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I do too. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's a real 10 increase based on inflation. And, to me, either 40 or 11 50 percent of C.P.I. seems reasonable. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just one thing I'm not 13 clear about. 14 MR. DELEON: Sure. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The number, 16 50 percent, is that a real number? Or is there a range? I 17 thought I heard you say this goes from 60 to 80. 18 MR. DELEON: Well, the -- what the Court can 19 authorize is anywhere between 30 and 80. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I meant 30 and 80, 21 yeah. 22 MR. DELEON: Yeah, percent of cumulative 23 change in the C.P.I. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Fifty, you just used 25 as an example? 8-23-04 67 1 MR. DELEON: I just used it as a general 2 example. I provided estimates of what people would gain to 3 Barbara, or what their increase would be under the 40 4 percent, so she has those. I can easily go back and provide 5 those at 50 or 60 or 70 or 80, whatever you decide -- 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 7 MR. DELEON: -- you want to do. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I like the idea of 9 the 50 percent adjustment. 10 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Aside from pensions, 11 do we -- does the County incur any other liability for 12 post-retirement benefits? The employees don't get -- 13 MS. NEMEC: Not the retirement. 14 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: They don't get 15 medical care. There -- there's no pension, as a whole. 16 MS. NEMEC: No. 17 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Or no liability. 18 MS. NEMEC: No. If they retire and they're 19 eligible for retirement benefits, they're allowed to stay on 20 the insurance program. At their cost, though. The County 21 does not pay anything towards their insurance. 22 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: There's been -- oh, 23 over the last decade or so, there's been a lot of 24 organizations -- employers come to the realization that 25 their post-retirement liability expenses are just 8-23-04 68 1 overwhelming, and most of it comes from -- in my -- my 2 understanding, most of it comes from medical plans, not -- 3 not retirement benefits. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think that -- I mean, 5 the -- basically, because the County salaries are not 6 particularly high to start with, I mean, any position, you 7 know, and these people are depending on their work for the 8 County for, you know 25, 30 years, I think we should try to 9 adjust them, you know, if we can afford to. I think it's 10 a -- it's a way of recognizing people who've done a lot of 11 service for the County. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Isn't the retirement 14 based on about 50 percent of what their actual income is 15 when they retire? 16 MR. DELEON: Well, sometimes. It's different 17 for everyone. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Depending on which 19 option they take, but only about 50 percent? 20 MR. DELEON: I mean, really, in our 21 retirement system, the longer you work, the greater 22 replacement you're going to have, and there's no limit on 23 replacement income. There's people out there that have 24 worked 40 years. Clerk out there for Victoria County who 25 retired can make twice as much retired as they're making 8-23-04 69 1 now. I mean, there's -- that's -- that can happen in a 2 retirement system. There's retirement systems that can, 3 because it's based on a cash balance account. The more 4 money you have put into the retirement system and, you know, 5 top it with a good match rate -- you guys have, what, 100, 6 90 percent, I believe. You know, that could really raise 7 somebody's annuity pension pretty high. So -- but 8 typically, anywhere -- anybody that works 20, 30 -- 30 years 9 should see a -- you know, anywhere between 70 to 80 percent 10 of their, you know, replacement income replaced by this 11 annuity. So -- 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Getting ready to retire, 13 Sheriff? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: By doing, for example, a 15 50 percent C.P.I. increase, should we authorize that today, 16 the effect of what I'm hearing is that all of these retirees 17 heretofore prior to December 31, 2003 -- 18 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- '03, they would have -- 20 assuming it has not already brought -- been brought to 21 50 percent C.P.I. adjustment since the date of their 22 retirement. 23 MR. DELEON: That is correct. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: And if we choose, we can do it 25 again next year, three years down the road, and what we do 8-23-04 70 1 then will be based upon whatever's done today, in that 2 period of time. 3 MR. DELEON: Yes. If you choose the same 4 option, what would happen is that -- say next year -- I'll 5 give you a really good example. You know, your rate goes up 6 because investment experience -- investment experience 7 wasn't as good or termination experience wasn't as good, or 8 whatever the factors. Then you can decide, okay, we're not 9 going to do that for this year. Then, if you don't do that 10 for a couple years, what could happen is when you do that, 11 then anyone that retired from the time -- that is eligible 12 from the last time that you did it to the current time would 13 get 50 percent, and then those people that got the last 14 50 percent would get the 50 percent too for those three 15 years, and that's it. Because you've already done it going 16 back. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: But, in either case, it's 18 probably going to be a considerably smaller percentage or 19 contribution. 20 MR. DELEON: Oh, yeah. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Because you're dealing with a 22 smaller -- much smaller time frame. 23 MR. DELEON: Absolutely. Absolutely. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: It could be, for example, two 25 or three years from now, point -- .05 or .06, maybe? 8-23-04 71 1 MR. DELEON: Well, absolutely. I mean, 2 two -- like, there's some counties that do the 5 percent or 3 do the flat rate, and one of the things I warn in doing 4 that -- not that I want to discourage that, but what I warn 5 is that what you're doing is that if you're increasing 6 annuities by 5 percent per year, and you develop that 7 practice, if those retirees are not dying, you're just 8 increasing 5 percent, and your benefit's greater; you're 9 promising more benefit every year. So, with this one, it's 10 kind of a good way to control what you increase and who you 11 increase it to. It's -- that's what it was designed for. 12 And -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a question 14 there. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Mrs. Budow? 16 MS. BUDOW: Thank you for taking a question 17 from the floor. What I hear them trying to take advantage 18 of is the decrease in their contribution; they're trying to 19 now add that back into the benefits. Is there any way to 20 tie what they agree to increase to, to the net change in 21 their contribution? 22 MR. DELEON: Well, no. I mean, what happens 23 is that they have -- the County has what we call a variable 24 rate plan, and that rate will vary based on the factors 25 we've talked about from year to year. Now, it doesn't 8-23-04 72 1 vary -- even on the various -- the best of years, it won't 2 vary a whole lot. What I mean by "a whole lot," like, a 3 percentage point or -- or greater. Because, due to the 4 nature of the plan, we have a lot of built-in mechanisms 5 that kind of try to make the rates stable. That being said, 6 you are going to have small variances. And what some 7 employers sometimes like to do, and it's certainly up to 8 them, is they like to make -- possibly increase benefits to 9 offset that -- that decrease. Others like to put more money 10 into the retirement system when -- when they feel that their 11 rate has gone down. Either is -- there's no right or wrong. 12 It just really depends on what the Court feels is, one, 13 affordable, and what they feel is right for their employees. 14 But that -- I mean, the two sides, both 15 employers -- there's some employers that'll do that; there's 16 some others that will -- that'll not probably decrease 17 benefits sometimes, or even increase their contributions, 18 because they feel it's an opportunity to provide more 19 increases, so they do benefit increases in the future. They 20 have already put a lot of money into the retirement system. 21 But I -- I really can't say there's one right or the other. 22 It's just pretty much what they feel is an acceptable 23 contribution rate that they can tolerate from year to year. 24 I mean, unless there's a very, very drastic change, which I 25 severely doubt, their rate's not going to vary a whole lot 8-23-04 73 1 from year to year. 2 MS. BUDOW: But there's a number associated 3 with -- whatever they're making an offer of, say, 30 percent 4 of C.P.I., there's a -- there is a definite number that's 5 now going to be added to their budget from here on out, 6 correct? 7 MR. DELEON: Yes. 8 MS. BUDOW: Okay. 9 MR. DELEON: There is going to be an 10 increase. And if we had mostly -- if you do -- let me 11 explain that to the Court. If you do the 50 percent of 12 C.P.I., it's a .29 increase. What that is, is that is a -- 13 an immediate unfunded liability, and what an unfunded 14 liability is, is a -- is a benefit that you're promising, 15 but have not yet funded. T.C.D.R.S. is an advance-funded 16 plan. What that is, is that the rate that you're providing 17 today is to fund the benefits of the future. In other 18 words, you can promise all the benefits you want; 19 100 percent match, COLA, all these kinds of things. If no 20 one ever takes advantage of the benefit, the ultimate cost 21 to the County is zero. So, matching only occurs at 22 retirement. If no one ever reaches retirement -- it's not 23 going to be likely, but say, in the extreme example, no one 24 ever reaches retirement, never collects a pension. If you 25 don't pay pension benefits, you're not paying benefits. So, 8-23-04 74 1 I mean, that's one thing to understand. 2 What you're doing right now is saving in the 3 event somebody does retire and needs a pension at that time, 4 and that's what the contribution rate is for. So, that's 5 why you'll have variances. I mean, it's no different 6 than -- really, it's really not -- you can use the analogy 7 of, you know, saving for college for a child. You know, if 8 -- if you save for college for a child and, you know, when 9 they're a senior, they tell you they don't want to go to 10 college and they want to be a rock star or something, and if 11 they never go to college and you never pay a tuition 12 payment, what's your ultimate cost for his college 13 education? Nothing. I mean, the benefit payments -- the 14 cost of the plan is when benefit payments are being paid. 15 So, I mean, you're -- and say that the rate goes up and 16 down. It goes up and down because if less people terminate, 17 you know, then that's telling our actuaries that calculate 18 the rates that the probability of people retiring increases, 19 so therefore, your cost increases slightly. But rates are 20 pretty -- rate stability is a big thing in our system. 21 We -- we try to provide as stable a rate as possible, 22 because we know we're dealing with taxpayer funds here. And 23 if -- if our rates were going up and down severely, I 24 wouldn't be working for this retirement system. It would be 25 tough to explain that to courts. 8-23-04 75 1 JUDGE TINLEY: The -- the addition this year 2 of .29 percent for a 50 percent C.P.I. increase -- 3 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that would hold for this 5 year only? 6 MR. DELEON: That would hold for this year. 7 As -- as far as next year -- next year's concerned, that 8 increase would be tied to your benefit. So, in looking at 9 your two benefit structures -- or your cost rate structure, 10 you're looking at a normal cost rate of 5.91, and unfunded 11 liability rate of 1.70. See that there? The total is 7.61. 12 The normal cost rate is -- I'd like to say usually is the 13 normal cost of funding current benefits. In other words, 14 that's what it's costing you to fund the benefits that 15 you're promising today for those people in the future. The 16 unfunded rate is simply benefits that have been promised, 17 but not yet funded. That sounds familiar, because that's 18 exactly what you create when you provide a benefit like a -- 19 like a cost-of-living increase. Now, the -- the 20 relationship between those two, and -- well, the actual 21 assets and liabilities, if you look at those two items down, 22 you see that you have an unfunded amount of $1.8 million, 23 almost 1.9. Well, again, remember what I said. These are 24 -- these are projections. These are estimates at best. 25 What we do with -- with that unfunded amount 8-23-04 76 1 is that we amortize it over 20 years, and then we have you 2 fund the first year, hence the 1.70. In other words, the 3 way we -- we calculate the employer rate is that we assess a 4 rate that normally -- that is the normal cost of funding 5 benefits, okay? And then we assess a rate for maybe -- for 6 benefits that have been promised, but not yet funded. So, 7 it's kind of a backward-looking way, but from year to year, 8 that -- that can fluctuate. The normal cost rate is not 9 going to fluctuate from year to year. The normal cost rate 10 will fluctuate somewhat slightly from year to year. It's 11 going to be probably the most stable of these two rates. 12 The unfunded rate is going to be the -- the one that's going 13 to go up and down. From last year to this year, that was 14 the one that actually went down, because we had good 15 experience. 16 So, the -- that rate, if you want to 17 budget -- one thing some counties do is, there's -- 18 sometimes they like a rate that's a little bit higher than 19 what they're putting in, and we allow for that. So, say 20 your rate was 7.9; you wanted to go with 8. We just cap it 21 at 8. As long as the total rate from year to year is lower 22 than 8, you'll always be at 8. You could have it that way 23 as well. But that -- that cost would be implemented as an 24 unfunded liability, and depending, you know, what happens 25 from year to year, you know, that liability could be lowered 8-23-04 77 1 next year. Could be higher. This year was lower because we 2 had good experience. 3 MS. BUDOW: If you add the cost on, the .29 4 that we're talking about, though, and everything else held 5 true from here on out, it would be basically -- what's 1.7 6 plus .29? 7 MR. DELEON: What it's doing -- that's a very 8 good question. If you look at -- look at the two rates 9 there, normal cost and U.L. rate, the 7.61, okay? If 10 everything held true and the actuaries had every assumption 11 right -- that's not going to happen, but, you know, let's 12 say, for example, that happens -- your rate should be going 13 down to 5.91 over 20 years, because what you're doing is 14 you're funding this unfunded amount over 20 years. And 15 we're -- pension funding is a long-term arrangement between 16 the time somebody starts and somebody dies, and a benefit 17 could be anywhere between 50 to 60 years. So, we know 18 that's the case, and that's why we amortize those 19 liabilities over 20 years, because, you know, we know you're 20 going to be here tomorrow and pay for this. So -- and 21 that's kind of the way we do that. So, if you're not making 22 any changes to your benefit, that rate should be going down 23 to zero every year. If it's not, then you need to be asking 24 why. And, in theory, that's what we're doing. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The total rate, the 8-23-04 78 1 7.61 percent, that's 7.61 percent of the total payroll? 2 What's that of? 3 MR. DELEON: Of payroll, yeah. Based on 4 employee-covered payroll. And the reason I say that is 5 because there's some employees -- and I don't know if you 6 have any here -- that may not be eligible for the retirement 7 system. Anybody that does contract work and those kind of 8 guys. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, if -- 10 MR. DELEON: Part-time. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- you go to the 12 50 percent of C.P.I., it's .0029? 13 MR. DELEON: Yes, that is correct. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Of total payroll? 15 MR. DELEON: That is correct. That's one 16 way -- 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 7.90. 18 MR. DELEON: That is one way to put that, 19 yeah. Yeah. Usually what I tell people to budget, look at 20 their true costs of the plan. That's usually the normal 21 cost rate. So, if your plan is going towards 100 percent 22 funded -- if it was 100 percent; in other words, the assets 23 and liabilities equal, then your total rate would be 5.91, 24 essentially. I mean, but even if you target for that, 25 you're going to be off, because assumptions change -- well, 8-23-04 79 1 not assumptions, but there's going to be variations in the 2 rate every year. But -- 3 MS. NEMEC: I believe in the budget figures 4 that you all have from the Auditor, he might have put a 5 certain percentage in there already. Is that correct, 6 Tommy? So some of this is already considered in the budget. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 7.90? 8 MR. TOMLINSON: No, it was more than that. 9 I -- I think -- 10 MS. NEMEC: He put a 5 percent -- 11 MR. TOMLINSON: -- we assumed a flat rate. 12 MS. NEMEC: A 5 percent, you think? .18? 13 MR. TOMLINSON: I think so, yeah. 14 MS. NEMEC: So, that's -- it would just be 15 the difference of 29 and 18 that we would have to add to the 16 budget. 17 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Do you know how many 18 dollars that is? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Payroll is probably 20 $10 million. 21 MS. NEMEC: I couldn't say right now without 22 looking, 'cause it would just be the ones that are on the 23 retirement system, not part-timers. 24 MR. DELEON: It would be those -- it's only 25 those that are in the retirement system. Not total payroll. 8-23-04 80 1 MS. NEMEC: Right. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the rate change is as 3 to the total amount. 4 MR. DELEON: Yeah. I mean, it's going to be 5 7.90 if you do the -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Times total payroll, 7 which is, you know -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Whatever. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- ballpark, $10 million 10 or so. 11 MR. DELEON: Yeah. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: But that -- that rate 13 adjustment is for the coming year only. 14 MR. DELEON: Yes. We add that to the -- to 15 the rate. Next year, we -- what we do every December 31st 16 is that we go ahead and reassess the plan, look at the 17 assets in the plan, look at the liabilities, and then figure 18 out what the unfunded amount is, amortize that over 20 19 years, and apply a rate. So -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But it has an impact on 21 all future years, because the liability's -- we're 22 increasing the liability if you do it one time. 23 MR. DELEON: You have to fund it. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's not going to be 25 point -- 8-23-04 81 1 MR. DELEON: Well, the .29 -- usually what I 2 tell people is to actually just figure that this rate will 3 be around that amount the next year as well, because what 4 you're doing is you're adding that liability that you hadn't 5 funded before. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 7 MR. DELEON: So, I mean, to say that next 8 year it'll be 7.61, though that's not going to be the case. 9 It will hover around 7.9, you know, plus or minus the same 10 basis points that you saw this year. I mean, always -- if 11 you budget around, you know, 50 basis points up or down, 12 that's very conservative, but some people do that. But in 13 this case, even in the very good year that we had last year, 14 you didn't see a 50 basis points change. And, yes, last 15 year we did have a good year. 16 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm still a little 17 bit unclear. What is going to be the dollar impact on this 18 year's budget? I'm thinking it's going to be about $30,000. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's what I think it's 20 going to be. But, I mean, I think that -- to me, I don't 21 know that we need to make that decision today. I'd rather 22 make that decision when we get the budget numbers. I 23 think -- I mean, I think I'd like to try to do it, but I 24 want to make sure that we can afford to do it. And I think 25 we can, but I think we have to weigh that against some other 8-23-04 82 1 options -- other budget considerations. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: If I'm not mistaken, -- 3 MR. DELEON: Yes, sir? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: -- your enrollment runs 5 calendar year, January 1 to December 31? 6 MR. DELEON: Mm-hmm, yeah. And you have 7 until December 15th to get us the resolution or order 8 approving this, so you have -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: For the '05 calendar year? 10 MR. DELEON: That is correct. Yeah, the 11 resolution or order is due by the 15th of December to adopt 12 any changes for the upcoming year. So, every year you can 13 look at this the same way. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It seems to me that 15 the reality is that there is no new economic impact or 16 additional impact to the '04-'05 budget, because we're 17 currently at 7. -- 7.97 or something like that. We would 18 drop -- if we add this back, we're still within the same 19 dollar amount we're paying now. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's true. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There is no ongoing 22 extra impact. We're already there. 23 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That sounds right. 24 I'd like -- I'd like to sleep on it for 24 hours and have 25 Tommy tell me that. 8-23-04 83 1 MR. DELEON: But we -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. I 3 understand, sure. 4 MR. DELEON: Are we kind of clear on the 5 concept? Any questions? I want to make sure that y'all 6 understand. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: The only thing I want to get 8 crystal clear in my mind is that if you add point -- if you 9 add 29 basis points to this year, -- 10 MR. DELEON: Yes, sir? 11 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that is a continuing 12 obligation in subsequent years. 13 MR. DELEON: It -- it has to be. I mean -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 15 MR. DELEON: The other thing -- you know, 16 I'll give an extreme example. If you authorize a -- usually 17 I don't like to give extreme examples, 'cause retirees kind 18 of shake, but if you authorize this increase at .29, and 19 every retiree -- you put them in a bus and they all die next 20 year, you're not paying out a benefit. So, let's just say 21 that, even though you're -- you're promising a benefit, and 22 it's .29 for this year, what that .29 is, is an estimate of 23 what we feel the unfunded liability is to the plan, and what 24 you need to fund at most to provide that new benefit that 25 you're doing. 8-23-04 84 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If we do it, we're 2 increasing the retirees' payments for the rest of the 3 retirees' lives. 4 MR. DELEON: Yeah. So, if they continue to 5 live, then yes, you will continue to have this liability. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, 'cause their 7 basic annuity is increased by that amount. 8 MR. DELEON: Exactly. 9 MS. NEMEC: What happens next year is, 10 instead of seeing that .29 here at the bottom, you're going 11 to see it within that 7.61. And what they're going to do is 12 they're going to do a study on our plan. And, it's like he 13 says; if we've lost a lot of retirees to death, then that's 14 going to benefit our plan. So, that's where you're going to 15 see -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You'll never see it 17 exactly. 18 MS. NEMEC: Right. 19 MR. DELEON: You'll never see the .29 20 exactly. It'll be already computed in the -- mostly it'll 21 be in the unfunded liability rate, because that's what that 22 is. But unfunded liabilities can come and go. There's some 23 counties that -- that have had high unfunded liability 24 amounts, and from one year to the next, they've had very low 25 ones. It's due to the experience. Maybe they had more 8-23-04 85 1 people quit, take their money out than was expected. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Mrs. Buck, did you have a 3 question? 4 MS. BUCK: Yes. Isn't it a fact that about 5 30 percent of our retirees are already in their 80's? 6 MR. DELEON: There's a lot of those. 7 MS. BUCK: They're not going to live 20 8 years. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But they're going to 10 get the adjustment. 11 MS. BUCK: We'll get it this time, yes, until 12 they -- 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And we have to pay 14 for that adjustment, even though they may die tomorrow. 15 MS. BUCK: Yes, I understand. What I'm 16 saying -- he was saying that it would go on for 20 years. I 17 just wanted to make a change. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 19 MR. DELEON: It will -- the adjustment to 20 their pension would be for as long as they received the 21 pension. 22 MS. BUCK: Right. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: As long as they remain 24 eligible, yeah. Did you have a question, Mr. Tomlinson? 25 MR. TOMLINSON: Just for information, I'd 8-23-04 86 1 like to know how -- how our unfunded liability of Kerr 2 County relates to the system as a whole. 3 MR. DELEON: Well, it's right around average. 4 I mean, the system as a whole is right around 90 percent 5 asset-to-liability ratio. But, in doing so, that's putting 6 you in -- in -- you know, amongst Harris County, amongst, 7 you know, Bexar County. 8 MR. TOMLINSON: I just know that there's 9 some -- 10 MR. DELEON: It averages around 90. 11 MR. TOMLINSON: -- some counties that have a 12 huge unfunded liability, I mean, in relation to ours. 13 MR. DELEON: Yeah. Oh, yeah, there is some 14 that do. There's some that do. And it's not so much the -- 15 the amount, that $1.8 million. It's more the relationship 16 between the assets and liabilities that happens from year to 17 year. Because the assets will go up, the liabilities will 18 go up, but it's the ratio between those two that really 19 matters. Not so much the difference, because if both 20 increase, then the difference is actually higher anyway due 21 to the numbers. But in relation to T.C.D.R.S., that's right 22 around average, 87 percent. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody else have any 24 questions of Mr. DeLeon? 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We'll make a decision 8-23-04 87 1 at budget time. I appreciate your explanation. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You did a good job of 3 explaining it. 4 MR. DELEON: Thank you. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Appreciate you 6 coming. 7 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Excellent. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: The folks on the next item -- 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just stepped out in 10 the hall. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: -- stepped out for just a 12 moment. Would you tell the folks that just stepped out that 13 I think we're about ready to take up their item? There they 14 are. Does any member of the Court wish to offer anything 15 additional with regard to the T.C.D.R.S. retirement plan 16 information that we just got? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No. I want us to 18 take it up in budget. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anybody else? Let's 20 move on to Item 9, consider and discuss permitting the 21 Shannon Air 1 Subscription program available for purchase in 22 Kerr County, and authorize the County Judge to sign 23 authorization letter. Commissioner Nicholson, I'll let you 24 run with this one. 25 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Ms. Terry Budow, who 8-23-04 88 1 all of you know has been here before to talk to us about EMS 2 and fire protection out in the far west part of the county, 3 is here to ask the Court to acknowledge that an organization 4 named Shannon Air Med 1 will be providing a subscription 5 program in Kerr County. Ms. Budow? 6 MS. BUDOW: Thank you. Sorry, I should have 7 been prepared, but didn't realize I was going to be 8 addressing the Court. Thank you. You may recall from the 9 last time that our issue was, being out in the far west 10 county, that we've had a couple of occasions, not from any 11 failure on anybody's part, but just because of logistics and 12 how far we're out, that we can't get First Responders out 13 there very quickly. And our primary concern was really to 14 get helicopters out there. You have to have a First 15 Responder out there to get a helicopter sent to your 16 location, and it -- and Kerrville, I think you've been -- 17 even Kerrville, after EMS drove out there to see how far out 18 they were, by their own admission, it takes a long time to 19 get out there. 20 So, our primary concern was to try and find a 21 way, either through Junction providing us with the EMS 22 services or some other way, to get the -- to find a way -- 23 to find the fastest possible way to get a helicopter out 24 there, and we lighted onto Shannon Air Medical Service, 25 which is a subscription service that we can subscribe to, 8-23-04 89 1 provided that y'all will sign the letter allowing them to 2 sell their services in the county. And that will allow for 3 us to directly call a helicopter service ourselves, or Bill 4 Amerine has agreed that he will dispatch them if they get a 5 9-1-1 call to a subscribed service in our area, so that we 6 can get helicopter service through the fastest means 7 possible, at least that we've found so far. Do you agree or 8 dis -- 9 MR. BUDOW: I think that's correct. 10 MS. BUDOW: This is my husband, Harry. He's 11 the president of our homeowner's association, so if you 12 don't mind listening. 13 MR. BUDOW: Gentlemen, the -- we've had a 14 meeting, since the last time we spoke to the Court, with the 15 Kerrville Fire and EMS people. We were successful, with 16 their agreement, having our 9-1-1 calls on the fire side go 17 directly to the Junction fire response, and that has worked 18 very smoothly and well the one time we've had to use it thus 19 far. We're now trying to address the EMS side of the 20 equation, which is to also have Junction EMS respond as a 21 First Responder -- as our First Responder, with Kerrville as 22 the backup EMS response. But, in either one of those 23 circumstances, the citizens, if you will, of our subdivision 24 feel like we're best served if we can have a critical care 25 helicopter transport ready and available when that ambulance 8-23-04 90 1 arrives, be that the Kerrville ambulance or the Junction 2 ambulance. We still feel, as citizens, and we're 3 individually willing to pay for the subscription service to 4 have the helicopter available to us should we need it. But, 5 because of the Texas Department of Health statutes, they 6 require that the County sign off on allowing the helicopter 7 health transport service to come into the county. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Come into the county, 9 or be dispatched from here? 10 MR. BUDOW: Come into the county. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: From outside? 12 MR. BUDOW: From San Angelo. They are in San 13 Angelo. They serve 31, I believe, other counties in the 14 west Texas area, and so we would be 32, if you will. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've got a question, 16 but I don't think it's directed to either one of you. I see 17 the City Attorney and the Fire Chief, and a whole herd of 18 them back here -- or a covey, excuse me. My question is, I 19 remember, Raymond, like when the -- when we brought the EMS 20 into the city, and there's some kind of an agreement that no 21 other EMS can come in without permission or without 22 invitation or whatever that might be. I'm wondering, is 23 there anything like that dealing with chopper service into 24 the county? 25 MR. HOLLOWAY: No. No. Currently, there is 8-23-04 91 1 not. We just kind of -- we have an agreement with -- with 2 air -- I mean Critical Air; if we need a helicopter, we'll 3 call them in lieu of calling one out of San Antonio. 4 Previous to that, we'd call Air Life out of San Antonio to 5 come assist us if we needed a helicopter. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what one of my 7 questions was. And they said that was -- that Shannon -- 8 MR. BUDOW: Air Med. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Shannon Air Med would 10 be the quickest. How could that be? I drive to San Angelo 11 a lot, and how is that possible, comparing San Antonio with 12 San Angelo? This thing sits over here. 13 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, probably -- you know, I 14 don't -- just basing it on what the -- the air service told 15 them, it would be about a 50-minute response time. I 16 believe that's right, isn't it? 17 MS. BUDOW: I think so. 18 MR. HOLLOWAY: But the difference is what -- 19 from what I understand what their subscription fee is, he 20 would call -- the ambulance would -- I mean, the helicopter 21 would come as soon as they call it. With us, when we 22 arrive, we have to arrive at the scene and assess whether 23 that patient needs to be transported by helicopter or not, 24 and there's a couple of different reasons we do that. One 25 is trauma. Our hospital currently is not a trauma center, 8-23-04 92 1 so we have to take all of our trauma patients to San 2 Antonio, and that's one instance that we'd use a helicopter. 3 Another would be if it's a heart attack or something, a 4 really serious injury; then we would send them by 5 helicopter. But our protocols tell us that we have to be on 6 the scene and assess the patient before we call a 7 helicopter. A helicopter ride is about $8,000 to $10,000, 8 and so we need to make sure that that patient really needs 9 to go by helicopter, or is it somebody that we can transport 10 by ambulance? And this subscription fee -- and I'm not -- I 11 just -- I don't know how -- I just kind of talked with them 12 out in the hall a little bit about it. What I understand 13 this fee is, they pay this helicopter service $49 a year, 14 and they'll come pick them up. You call them, and they'll 15 come in, pick them up without being assessed by a medic. 16 Now, they're -- they'll work with Junction, but, you know, 17 I'm not sure -- I haven't -- we're going to call the San 18 Angelo people and find -- get some more information that 19 might benefit these people too. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Well -- and 21 then -- well, one of the questions that just popped in my 22 mind when you were talking about the prices and all of that 23 is, seems to me that insurance companies are difficult to 24 deal with sometimes when it gets to those high-cost issues. 25 But my -- one of my main questions is, what -- what kind of 8-23-04 93 1 helicopter do they have in San Angelo? You know, I 2 understand that those things -- as an example -- okay, I'll 3 just do it. I'm too heavy for this helicopter right over 4 here to carry me to San Antonio, so if I had -- if I needed 5 a chopper service to get me to a trauma center, one would 6 have to come out of San Antonio and come up here and get me. 7 That one over here won't carry me. 8 MR. HOLLOWAY: That's correct. Now, what I 9 understand from information that they've given me is that 10 the helicopter they're going to use is similar to the one 11 that they have in San Antonio. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Air Life? 13 MR. HOLLOWAY: Yeah, which is capable of 14 doing that. But we're going to also contact the people and 15 find out, 'cause, you know, I don't want these people -- 16 people out there to subscribe to something that they find 17 out later is not going to do them right. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Me either. That's my 19 only concern. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where would that 21 helicopter take a patient from your area? 22 MS. BUDOW: Wherever you ask them to. But 23 they do assess your -- what care you need, and more than 24 likely, they'll take us to San Antonio. 25 MR. BUDOW: San Antonio or San Angelo are the 8-23-04 94 1 two facilities. 2 MR. HOLLOWAY: Trauma center. Their hospital 3 is designated a trauma center. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Shannon? 5 MS. BUDOW: May I address something that you 6 asked earlier? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask you another 8 question; then you can address both of them. Will that 9 thing have to refuel while it's in Kerrville? I know that's 10 funny. 11 MR. BUDOW: It's a fair question. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very serious question. 13 MR. BUDOW: Fair question. I don't know the 14 answer. 15 MR. HOLLOWAY: I don't know that either. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Pretty long flight for a 17 helicopter. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It is. 19 MS. BUDOW: Our approach to this was, as you 20 may recall, we asked that we have an inter-county agreement 21 with Junction EMS so that Junction could respond to us. 22 Since Junction is a volunteer fire department, they've not 23 committed to us yet that they would respond to us. So, 24 best-case scenario that we've had respond with a First 25 Responder to us in the west county was 56 minutes. That's 8-23-04 95 1 the best case, onto our property. So, if you've got 2 somebody who can't be transported to a location, EMS' best 3 response to us has been 56 minutes, and only then could the 4 helicopter be called from Kerrville EMS. What we were 5 looking for is a way to go get -- to be able to pick up the 6 phone and say, "We believe we need a helicopter out here." 7 Somebody's missing a limb; somebody's clearly had a heart 8 attack. Shannon has said that, in worst-case scenario, they 9 can get to us in 50 minutes. Their literature actually says 10 probably more like 40 minutes, but in either case, Kerrville 11 EMS and their helicopter would be arriving at the same time. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is there any 13 liability or exposure to Kerr County by -- as a result of 14 this service flying in? 15 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well -- 16 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I've had some 17 conversations with the County Attorney about it. First, I 18 want to note that we're not contracting with Shannon or with 19 Y.O. Ranch Estates. We think we have no liability, or 20 really no standing in the matter. All we're being asked to 21 do is acknowledge that Shannon would be -- will be serving 22 portions of Kerr County. That's currently being done, to my 23 knowledge. The La Hacienda Treatment Center contracts with 24 a private helicopter service for use during floods and high 25 water. They've been out there within the last few months 8-23-04 96 1 providing transportation for physicians and -- and patients. 2 So, in my mind, we're not taking on any liability or any 3 costs. We're simply acknowledging that a subdivision is 4 contracting with a provider. David, do you want to speak to 5 it? 6 MR. MOTLEY: I think you're exactly right. 7 The only thing that I can see in talking about it is that, 8 in order for the ambulance -- the EMS provider to be able to 9 begin to operate a subscription or membership program within 10 the -- within any given area, they are supposed to obtain 11 the permission of the Health Department. And part of the 12 request for permission includes a -- really, they call it a 13 written authorization from -- they call it the bureau chief, 14 elected official of the governmental entity, which I guess 15 is you. The bureau chief. But, basically, your 16 authorization -- 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: There comes a salary 18 increase. 19 MR. MOTLEY: -- to authorize -- 20 JUDGE TINLEY: At least 20 percent. 21 MR. MOTLEY: -- them to do it is all that's 22 required. And, as I see it -- and I think Commissioner 23 Nicholson's correct. I -- to me, it's just a matter of, you 24 know, contract law. These people want it; these people are 25 going to provide it, and I don't think the County has much 8-23-04 97 1 to say about it. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Motley -- and this may 3 also be a question to Ms. Bailey. We have some agreements 4 in place relative to EMS service in Kerr County, with the 5 Kerrville EMS, if I'm not mistaken, do we not? Would this 6 Court acknowledging the existence of this subscription 7 service, or otherwise allowing them to do what they feel 8 like is in their own best interest, would that be in any 9 manner in contravention of any portion of these agreements 10 that Kerr County has in place with Kerrville or the EMS 11 service? 12 MR. MOTLEY: Well, you know, to be honest 13 about it, the best thing for me to do would be to review any 14 sort of agreements. I don't know exactly how broad they 15 are. I'm sure that Kerr County has made agreements. I know 16 we have agreements with the fire department, for example, 17 for fire service and such. I've not ever reviewed anything 18 relating to ambulance services. I'd be happy to do that. I 19 don't know if you're talking about a specific agreement 20 related to ambulance-type stuff, but in any event -- 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I think we have one, do we 22 not? 23 MR. MOTLEY: I've never -- I've never looked 24 at it. 25 MS. BAILEY: I worked on it when I worked for 8-23-04 98 1 the County, so -- 2 MR. MOTLEY: Yeah. I've not looked at 3 anything like that, but I'm sure -- I'm sure it exists. I'm 4 just saying I can't see that the County could restrict 5 people out at Y.O. Ranch Estates from -- from -- you know, 6 they could buy their own helicopter if they wanted to, as 7 far as I can see. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't want to do that. 9 MR. MOTLEY: Yeah. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: I just want to make sure we 11 don't have an existing agreement in place that, by our 12 permitting them to do that, it gets us in -- in -- 13 MR. MOTLEY: I think that's good. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: -- in breach of any agreement 15 that we've got in place. We may have to go back and amend 16 that agreement. 17 MR. MOTLEY: I'd be more than happy to look 18 at what is in place, if the Court would like me to. I have 19 not seen it. Ms. Bailey's probably familiar with it. 20 MS. BAILEY: As Raymond says, I believe that 21 it relates to the provision of ambulance service. Now, of 22 course, that contemplated motor vehicle, on-the-ground 23 ambulance service. I guess you might be able to stretch it 24 to say, well, it may also include air ambulance service. 25 So, I think probably the best thing for us to do to be 8-23-04 99 1 absolutely certain would be to pull that agreement and 2 review it, and if we felt like it needed to be amended and 3 the governing bodies wanted to do that, then we should do 4 that as the next step to make sure that all this works 5 seamlessly. 6 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We do have an 7 agreement; I think it was made in 1994. Still in place, so 8 that's probably appropriate to take a look at it. I've got 9 a copy of it in my office, David. 10 MR. MOTLEY: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One question. As I 12 understand it, the -- the residents will make the call on 13 whether an ambulance comes or not. And the only thing I can 14 see, really -- just to make sure I'm understanding how it 15 works, I see a problem potentially with insurance companies, 16 that if a -- if a person -- individual calls an ambulance, 17 whether that's to be covered by insurance, versus an 18 ambulance calling for, you know, service. But that really 19 doesn't affect us, but I think the people just need to be -- 20 it's a question I think y'all need to answer as to if you 21 call a helicopter, who's paying for that helicopter? Your 22 insurance, or you personally? 23 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Shannon Air Med 24 deals with what happens if it's not, quote, a medical 25 necessity, so you put yourself at risk of having to pay the 8-23-04 100 1 whole cost of it if it's not. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: But that's an issue with the 3 requester. 4 MS. BAILEY: Absolutely. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: And I don't want them -- if we 6 need to change some agreement that we presently got in place 7 to permit these people to do whatever they feel like they 8 need to do at their own cost, insurance company's cost, or 9 any other companies, I want them to be able to do what they 10 want to do to protect their own best interests for their 11 health care needs. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But my question, though, 13 is I don't want to get Kerrville EMS in a situation that 14 they're pressured to say, yes, an ambulance needed to be 15 called when they don't think it does. I want to make sure 16 who's -- when it comes to the insurance, as to who is making 17 this call. If Shannon's going to independently always, say, 18 make that determination, that's fine. But if they want 19 the -- Shannon wants Kerrville EMS to make the decision, I 20 think the Chief needs to be -- you know. 21 MS. BAILEY: If I can make a suggestion, I'll 22 take a look at it and make a recommendation, get in contact 23 with David, and we can make a written report to you all so 24 you could put it on your agenda next time. And if -- and if 25 an amendment needs to be made, then that can be done in two 8-23-04 101 1 weeks on both the City and the County's agendas. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: I think that's a good 3 approach. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Fine with me. 6 MR. HOLLOWAY: Can I say something? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure. As long as we like 8 hearing it. 9 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, I guess my big concern 10 on this -- you know, this -- our biggest concern is, of 11 course, medical treatment. And I understand that they're a 12 long ways away from us, but I guess my concern is, once you 13 open the door, let this company come in, what's to keep them 14 from going to other parts of the county to do this? And 15 based on what they're telling me, it sounds like a pretty 16 good deal. But we're -- as y'all are aware, our ambulance 17 service is not tax-supported, you know. Our -- you know, 18 it's a user-pay system, and if we stop picking up people, 19 then we start losing revenue. And if we start losing 20 revenue, our expenditure's not going away, as y'all know. 21 Fuel costs and medical supplies and everything keep going 22 up. So we need to take -- y'all need to take a real good 23 look at some of the possibilities of what could -- can you 24 just make this to where it only affects their area, and not 25 make it a broad, county-wide situation? Because if I'm this 8-23-04 102 1 San Angelo company and y'all open it up for the county, I'm 2 going to start hitting Mo Ranch and some of these other 3 places that are out in Mountain Home, some of those other 4 areas, and, you know, it's possible that we could -- I don't 5 want to sound morbid or anything, but we could start losing 6 revenue. And if we start losing revenue, then we're going 7 to have to figure out some way to offset our expenditures, 8 and we're -- and our expenditures right now are exceeding 9 our revenues. So, just -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: I understand your concern. I 11 think the overriding consideration, Chief, should be who can 12 provide the best emergency -- 13 MR. HOLLOWAY: I agree with that. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: -- response service to the 15 citizens, and that -- that's going to be the controlling 16 factor, I would think. 17 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, I agree that, you know, 18 medical help is a lot more important than -- but we need to 19 -- you know, we need to look at all those areas. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think what the Chief's 21 saying is that, yes, that's right, but there's a cost that 22 may go to the County for making that decision. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, there's also 25 one -- is there a way we can geographically isolate this? I 8-23-04 103 1 think that's the point the Chief's making, too. 2 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Again, Commissioner, 3 I don't see us as being a party to the deal. I think the 4 only thing we're asked -- being asked to do is to 5 acknowledge that the subdivision is making a deal. And -- 6 and I use Mo Ranch as an example. I live right across the 7 river from Mo Ranch, and when I have a heart attack, I 8 wouldn't mind being able to pick up the phone and -- and ask 9 for a helicopter. And if I've made a mistake, I just got 10 the flu, then my insurance is not going to pay for it. I 11 am. Or in the case of this, nobody is. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See, I agree with 13 that. My only question in this thing is, why would I call a 14 helicopter that's going to take 56 minutes to get there when 15 I can get one for about 30 out of San Antonio? I don't -- I 16 don't follow that. 17 MR. HOLLOWAY: I can answer that. It's going 18 to take us 50 minutes to get out there, and then we'll call 19 for a helicopter. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. 21 MR. HOLLOWAY: It's going to take an 22 additional 30 or 40 minutes to get a helicopter, and that's 23 what their concern is. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, let me ask you 25 something. And this is probably the wrong place -- this is 8-23-04 104 1 a public setting -- to do this. You can wink or something 2 at me. Doesn't First Responders come into this picture of 3 assessing -- assessments? 4 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, First Responders will 5 get -- we have -- the fact is, we have First Responders in 6 that area, and one of them tonight is going to get an AED, 7 so they'll have an AED in that area. The First Responder 8 will get there and assess the patient and try to stabilize 9 that patient, and relay that information to the medics on 10 the ambulance. And that will help the ambulance -- medics 11 on the ambulance make a decision to possibly send the 12 helicopter. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, they could call 14 right there and dispatch one? 15 MR. HOLLOWAY: And we have put helicopters in 16 the air before based on information that we received from 17 our First Responders. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 19 MR. HOLLOWAY: And if it's a -- you know, if 20 we get a call and it's a possible trauma or something, we 21 put the helicopter crew on standby, and they're ready, you 22 know, and all we have to do is say, "Get in the air," and so 23 that reduces their response time by quite a bit. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Chief, your response 25 to Commissioner Baldwin, I think, answers the question 8-23-04 105 1 that's been lingering in my mind. Are you going to continue 2 to respond to calls that come from the plateau out there? 3 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, and that's something 4 we're going to have to work out, because I would -- you 5 know, who does respond? You know, if they call in and 6 Junction -- and Junction's en route, then we probably 7 won't -- won't respond. It's similar to what we had with -- 8 years ago with the Comfort EMS. The Comfort EMS would cover 9 everything from Roane Road east, and the only time we would 10 respond is if they couldn't make that call or they needed 11 additional help. So I don't -- we don't have a real problem 12 in the far end of the county, people helping us. And that's 13 why we said it's okay for Junction to work with them. 14 MR. BUDOW: There was a -- excuse me. There 15 was an open action item at the last -- when we last 16 attended. I believe it was April 12th, that the 17 Commissioners instructed the County Attorney's office to 18 consider or review the need for a mutual aid agreement 19 between the counties to facilitate our ability to have 20 Junction EMS respond. Until that happens, Junction EMS 21 couldn't respond to the 9-1-1 call. We still have the 22 technology, I guess, set up. When we dial 9-1-1, it is Kerr 23 EMS -- Kerr County -- Kerrville EMS that responds to us, and 24 Junction just is listening in the background for backup. If 25 we could convert it the other way, according to what we all 8-23-04 106 1 agree, where Junction was the first responder to the 9-1-1 2 call, and Kerrville back them up, then that would be ideal 3 for us. The helicopter comes either way, based upon the 4 citizen's call to them. The 800 call goes to them directly. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What would the first 6 -- if Junction became your primary call, where would the 7 First Responder come from? 8 MR. BUDOW: Junction. 9 MS. BUDOW: Junction. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is there one in your 11 area from Junction? 12 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, no. Actually, the First 13 Responder -- we're talking about two different things. He's 14 talking about the ambulance service. We're talking about 15 First Responders. First Responders are people like you. 16 MR. BUDOW: Right. 17 MR. HOLLOWAY: And they would still come from 18 us -- still be Kerr County First Responders. But -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But -- 20 MR. HOLLOWAY: But the call would go -- if 21 it's set up right, the call would go to Junction. Junction 22 EMS would respond, and they would also call for a First 23 Responder, and that would be from the county. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Two questions -- I'm 25 sorry, go ahead. 8-23-04 107 1 MS. BUDOW: To -- just to Junction. Junction 2 EMS, volunteer fire department, they have to agree to want 3 to do this, which they have not yet done. They're still 4 discussing it. So, we still look to, today, Kerrville EMS 5 as our primary responder. So, until Junction decides 6 something different, Kerrville is our primary. In any 7 event, we still need the inter-county agency agreement to 8 make -- to help us along with Junction responding or of 9 agreeing to respond, but they've not yet. So, yes, we still 10 look to Kerrville EMS. 11 MR. HOLLOWAY: They haven't even contacted 12 me. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Even on a secondary basis, we 14 need that agreement, is what you're saying? 15 MS. BUDOW: Yes, sir. 16 MR. BUDOW: Yes, sir. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That answered one of 18 my questions. 19 MS. BUDOW: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The other question 21 was, did I hear you say that Bill Amerine said he would 22 dispatch the helicopter out of -- what did you say? 23 MR. BUDOW: She -- that was said. That's not 24 exactly -- he needs to work with the -- either the Junction 25 EMS or the Kerrville EMS folks once it was okayed by the 8-23-04 108 1 Commissioners Court to -- for us to have this relationship. 2 What he said is he -- he can do that. The system can be set 3 up to do that, but that would have to be with the agreement 4 of Chief Holloway, with the agreement of the people in 5 Junction. So, what Terry said is correct, it is capable. 6 He's willing to do that, but he needs to, you know, work 7 with all of the people involved. He's not going to do that 8 on his own accord just because we say so. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One more question. Is -- 10 if the agreement is signed, it doesn't give Shannon 11 exclusive for your area? 12 MR. HOLLOWAY: No. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What I was thinking, I 14 could see a scenario very easily where Kerrville EMS goes 15 out there and they decide a helicopter is needed, not the 16 people making the phone call. So, you can -- if you call 17 the helicopter, could you have called the one out of San 18 Antonio? 19 MR. HOLLOWAY: Well, generally the one here. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or the one here. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Unless it's someone as big as 22 Buster. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Unless it's somebody 24 my size. 25 MR. HOLLOWAY: Yeah. 8-23-04 109 1 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Sounds like what we 2 need to do is schedule this for the first meeting in 3 September, and the City and County Attorneys will take a 4 look at the contract and -- that we have with Kerrville to 5 see if any changes are needed that could affect this 6 service. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And when you're looking 8 at it, keep in mind the Comfort situation, again, because 9 the County Judge down there is willing to relook at this 10 situation, try to put pressure on the city of Boerne. I 11 know you're willing to. 12 MR. HOLLOWAY: We're willing to. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: One final thing on 14 this weight thing. This is going to surprise you. You may 15 want to think about -- what is the weight? 16 AUDIENCE: 212. 17 MR. HOLLOWAY: 300. I think it's 300 pounds. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. No, it's 19 240 pounds or something like that. If you're over 240, this 20 thing over here won't take you. 21 MR. HOLLOWAY: I think it's 300. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. Well, I'm safe, 23 then. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: That's what you say. 25 MR. HOLLOWAY: Borderline there, Buster. 8-23-04 110 1 MR. MOTLEY: They're going to get a diesel 2 helicopter. 3 COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: For now, you're 4 safe. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's one other 6 point, though, to consider as we get this -- before we get 7 it and bring it back to us, and that's the point that the 8 Chief made. And it can be accomplished in the letter that 9 it's suggested the County Judge sign that goes to the 10 Shannon Air Med subscription program, and that being that 11 their services are restricted to the Y.O. Ranchlands area of 12 Kerr County. I think that's the point he was trying to 13 make. Once in, what's to keep them from answering the call 14 in central city, eastern part of the county or wherever? 15 And so that's a -- it's something we ought to think about, 16 talk about. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I tell you, one thing 18 that's going to regulate it is the cost. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand that. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's going to 21 regulate a lot of things. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We don't want to do 23 that precipitously. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: If we go to interfering with 25 the ability of private citizens to enter into a contractual 8-23-04 111 1 relationship with an entity, I'm not -- I'm not sure where 2 that -- whether that exposes us, possibly, to some degree. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a point to 4 consider, Judge. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's a good point. But 6 I think the other side of that is, when we enter into 7 something that affects the other -- the county as a whole, 8 from the EMS, from Kerrville -- I mean, we've got to look at 9 both sides. I think we need to let citizens do it, but we 10 don't want to adversely affect other residents. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: We know you're approaching 12 300, but are not near there yet. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just wanted to be sure 14 Raymond understood what it's like. Make sure they have an 15 extra fuel tank on that chopper; we don't want to stop and 16 gas up somewhere. 17 (Discussion off the record.) 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anything else on this 19 particular item? 20 MR. BUDOW: No, sir. Thank you very much. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you for bringing that to 22 us. 23 MR. BUDOW: Thank you, gentlemen. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we going in 25 executive session now? 8-23-04 112 1 JUDGE TINLEY: I think so. Okay. 2 (Discussion off the record.) 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. At this juncture, we 4 will -- having nothing else on the open session agenda, we 5 will close the open session at 11:30, and will now go into 6 closed session or executive session. I guess we're going to 7 need our attorney. It's a matter involving the airport; Mr. 8 Pearce, the Airport Manager, and we have the City's Attorney 9 that's involved here also, Ms. Bailey. And I think that's 10 going to be it. 11 (The open session was closed at 11:30 a.m., and an Executive Session was held, the 12 transcript of which is contained in a separate document.) 13 - - - - - - - - - - 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come back into 15 open session. It is 11:47, and we're back into open session 16 of Commissioners Court. Does any member of the Court desire 17 to offer anything with respect to matters considered in -- 18 in closed session? 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, I would offer 20 for approval the joint resolution authorizing TexDOT to 21 enter into eminent domain proceedings for purposes of 22 acquiring real estate to protect airport approaches and 23 proceed with airport improvements, and authorize the County 24 Judge to sign all documents to accomplish this that are 25 associated with TexDOT Project Number 0315KERVL. 8-23-04 113 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Second. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Motion made and seconded. Any 3 discussion on the motion? All in favor of the motion, 4 signify by raising your right hand. 5 (The motion carried by unanimous vote.) 6 JUDGE TINLEY: All opposed, same sign. 7 (No response.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: That motion does carry. 9 Any -- any other member of the Court have anything to offer 10 further for this meeting? Hearing nothing further, we'll 11 stand adjourned. 12 (Commissioners Court adjourned at 11:48 a.m.) 13 - - - - - - - - - - 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 8-23-04 114 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 30th day of August, 8 2004. 9 10 11 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 12 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 13 Certified Shorthand Reporter 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 8-23-04