1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Budget Workshop 10 Tuesday, July 20, 2010 11 1:00 p.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 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X July 20, 2010 2 PAGE Review and discuss FY 2010-11 Budgets and fiscal, 3 capital expenditure and personnel matters related thereto, for various county departments, including, 4 but not limited to the following departments: 5 216th District Courts 3 6 Report from Financial Adviser -- 7 Sheriff's Office/Jail/Courthouse Security 10 8 Crime Victims 46 9 Indigent Health Care 48 10 DPS 54 11 Road & Bridge 55 12 County Clerk 66 13 County Treasurer 69 14 Juvenile Probation 72 15 Environmental Health 74 16 Information Technology 83 17 Extension Service 95 18 County-Sponsored 97 19 Court Compliance 111 20 City/County Joint Operations 113 21 Health Benefits Plan Issues 126 22 Modification to Position Schedule --- 23 Proposed County Capital Expenditures --- 24 Cost of Living Adjustment/Considerations --- 25 --- Adjourned 169 3 1 On Tuesday, July 20, 2010, at 1:00 p.m., a budget 2 workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in 3 the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse, 4 Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in 5 open court: 6 P R O C E E D I N G S 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me convene a budget workshop 8 posted for this date and time, Tuesday, July 20, 2010, at 9 1 p.m. This is to review various departmental budgets and 10 other matters as specified on the posted notice. The first 11 item is the 216th District Court. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Nobody's here, so we just go 13 ahead and cut it and go on? (Laughter.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Looks like we are on Page 25. 15 Is that where we are, gentlemen? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How about 28? 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm on 28. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, while we're waiting, 20 may I say something? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Surely. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just wanted to tell you 23 all just how wonderful the County Auditor is, and how 24 beautiful she is, and -- I can't read your handwriting real 25 well here, but... (Laughter.) Is that good enough? 7-20-10 bwk 4 1 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, that's good. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And were you paid for that 4 commercial? 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Quid pro quo, we call that. 7 JUDGE WILLIAMS: If I gave you handwritten notes, 8 would you read for me? 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It would be difficult, but 10 I'll do it. (Laughter.) 11 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Just as long as you don't call me 12 pretty. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Judge Williams, looks like I didn't 14 do a whole lot of damage to you. 15 JUDGE WILLIAMS: We already reduced it some on a 16 few items that I know you noted on the -- on several matters. 17 The one thing, on 10-435-450, on equipment maintenance, we 18 have taken over the monthly expense for our copy machine from 19 Probation, and I'm advised that's the amount that we -- we 20 need, 'cause we've taken over several things from Probation, 21 that being one of them, and so we'll need that expense. You 22 had reduced it by 1,000, and I think we had requested -- I 23 think, what, 1,250? 24 MS. HENDERSON: 1,200. That's divided between -- 25 the 198th also has 1,200. 7-20-10 bwk 5 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So we need to restore that to 2 the 1,200, right? 3 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Right. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Anything else? 5 JUDGE WILLIAMS: No. I understand the others. We 6 best work with within that range. The Court-appointed 7 services, I noticed that you zeroed out the civil 8 Court-appointed attorneys. My understanding is that has been 9 combined with general court appointments for criminal and 10 civil. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: There's a separate budget that we 12 now have, a totally separate budget that we're going to be 13 looking at for civil court appointments only. Those are the 14 C.P.S. cases that -- 15 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Right. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: And we have a separate budget for 17 those. 18 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Different than the one for -- 19 above it, for -- is that in a different line item than 20 10-435-402? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes. Yeah. 22 JUDGE WILLIAMS: So it just doesn't show up on my 23 budget? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: That's right. It's a separate 25 budget that we have for that. 402 is your criminal court 7-20-10 bwk 6 1 appointments only. 2 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Okay. All right. We'll work as 3 best we can within that, and if you can restore that 4 equipment maintenance issue, I'd appreciate that. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: It's been restored. 6 JUDGE WILLIAMS: All right. Anything else? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: No, sir. Any questions for the 8 Judge? 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Nice to see you, sir. 11 JUDGE WILLIAMS: No written comments, Buster? 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: You got to provide him with a copy, 14 Judge. You got to provide him with a copy if you want him -- 15 JUDGE WILLIAMS: He doesn't need a transcript to 16 perform; I understand that. Thank y'all very much. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: You bet. Okay. Tell you what, 18 let's take a look at 437. You might want to catch Becky to 19 make sure she stays here. That's the jail court. I didn't 20 make any changes to those numbers, anyway. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What page are we looking 22 at? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It would be 32. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 32. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 32? 7-20-10 bwk 7 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. Nothing changed. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. The other one we've got is 3 407, which is the -- the -- that's the civil court 4 appointments. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 170,000 in there. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's on Page 15. 170,000. 8 MS. HARGIS: We got a whole bunch more of those in 9 today -- I mean yesterday. I'm just hoping those big -- 10 supposedly we got another week-long case. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: The big number that we had for this 12 year were two of those big cases, multiple lawyers, went on 13 forever type cases. So, hopefully if we've only got one of 14 those for next year, why, we can -- we were looking at jail 15 court, Ms. Henderson, and none of those numbers changed, so 16 there's no problem there. What we're looking at now is the 17 civil court appointments. And while your judges may need to 18 sign off on those ultimately, the -- the first approval is 19 made by the master that's hearing those cases. 20 MS. HENDERSON: Correct. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: And what can you tell us about 22 upcoming cases of that nature that may be heard in this 23 coming budget year that might be extraordinary that we need 24 to look at? 25 MS. HENDERSON: The C.P.S. and Attorney General 7-20-10 bwk 8 1 cases? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 3 MS. HENDERSON: The only thing I've heard is that 4 they're filing a whole lot of C.P.S. cases, and that -- that 5 C.P.S. cases are -- we're getting a whole lot more of them. 6 They're using a whole lot more Court-appointed attorneys, 7 'cause every -- every person that's involved in a C.P.S. case 8 has to have a Court-appointed attorney. So, there'll be more 9 C.P.S. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis has said something 11 about -- 12 MS. HARGIS: Is there another big one coming up? 13 Do you know? 14 MS. HENDERSON: On C.P.S.? 15 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 16 MS. HENDERSON: I've got some big ones pending, but 17 nothing that's set right now. We had a jury trial set, but 18 that canceled, so -- but I have nothing pending right now in 19 Kerr County. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Would that have been a lengthy jury 21 trial, a week or more? 22 MS. HENDERSON: It would have been a week, yes, 23 sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 25 MS. HENDERSON: There will be some of those in next 7-20-10 bwk 9 1 year's budget. I just don't know how many. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But you don't see any that 3 are going to drag out for a month or two or three months? 4 MS. HENDERSON: No, not C.P.S. Normally C.P.S. at 5 most is a week. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What about other cases, like 7 criminal -- other criminal cases that are due? 8 MS. HENDERSON: What do we have pending in 9 criminal? 10 JUDGE WILLIAMS: Well, we have -- you're not on 11 C.P.S. now; you're back on criminal? 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Sorry, I meant civil. 13 MS. HENDERSON: Oh, civil. I thought you meant 14 criminal. Civil, nothing with Court-appointed attorneys. 15 JUDGE WILLIAMS: We're going to have some 16 big-ticket items on the criminal; we have organized crime -- 17 about 15 of those organized crime cases on that murder 18 scenario. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 20 JUDGE WILLIAMS: And some others like that. But I 21 don't -- nothing, I don't think, nothing that's going to 22 hammer us. On the C.P.S. cases, she'd be better to answer 23 that. 24 MS. HENDERSON: Yeah. C.P.S. right now, I don't 25 have any -- any actual pending jury trials, but there will be 7-20-10 bwk 10 1 several next year. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. HENDERSON: Okay? Is that it? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, this particular page 6 here, is that -- is this just 216th only? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: What, on the civil Court-appointed 8 attorneys? No, that's both courts. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Both courts. And that's the 10 only two courts that we concern ourselves with as far as 11 civil? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, what we did there was a 13 civil line item in the budget for the County Court at Law, 14 for the 198th District Court, and for the 216th. We've 15 combined all of those, those items just like we saw in Judge 16 Williams' budget. We've taken that out of his. This 17 includes all of the civil Court-appointed attorneys from all 18 three of those courts. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Very good, thank you. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay? Well, let's see if we can 21 live with the 170. Let's move on to the Sheriff's Office. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Uh-oh, there he is. I didn't 23 see him sneak up. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I snuck up here. Sorry, 25 Bruce. 7-20-10 bwk 11 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What page? Does anybody 2 know? 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I'm looking. Under Jail or 4 Sheriff's Department first? 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sheriff. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: The Sheriff's. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's your fund? What fund 9 are you? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: 560. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 560. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Looks to me like he's got a 13 lot of pages of notes, as usual. Starts on Page 71, I 14 believe. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Actually, in this budget, 16 Commissioner, it's not that bad. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not that bad? We do the 18 Sheriff first and jail second? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Sheriff's Office first, then 20 jail, then courthouse security. Are you ready? 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There it is. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: First off, as far as the 23 budget itself, and the Judge did not change that many things. 24 One thing, Judge, you did change was the overtime for the 25 Sheriff's Office. 7-20-10 bwk 12 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Last year we spent 46,592. 3 Current budget was 55,000. Year-to-date so far, we've spent 4 20,000. And actually, that's about two months, month and a 5 half old. And so I've asked again for 55,000. Now, that not 6 only does the actual overtime, whether it be hunting for a 7 drowning victim or just cases lasting longer and court cases 8 or things like that; that overtime budget also pays all the 9 holiday pay. We don't allow -- this Court can remember, we 10 started working a couple years ago to reduce the holiday 11 bank, you might call it. Instead of paying officers for 12 holidays they work, they got it put in kind of a comp type 13 bank, and trying to reduce down all that extra time. And I 14 don't give them comp time. We pay them so that we don't have 15 those big banks of time; that if they worked here five years, 16 and they originally stored that up in the bank five years ago 17 and then they leave this year, they get paid at this year's 18 rates. And so, to try and reduce that down, we went to 19 paying them directly for the holidays and paying them for the 20 comp time on their pay checks to keep from building all that 21 up. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Does your projected 23 envision that for this year? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This current year, the 25 projected is only up to 26,000. We've been able to give a 7-20-10 bwk 13 1 lot of people time off to try and burn it, 'cause we'll 2 either burn it in that same pay period, or we have to pay it. 3 But due to the number of holidays and everything, I'd like to 4 keep that at 55,000, just in case. Otherwise, I'm going to 5 be coming back to the Court for more. Now, this year is 6 estimated 26,000. You cut me to 35 from 55, but I think 7 that's -- you know, I admire my officers and my captains for 8 trying to stay within the budget and listening to me complain 9 about, "Don't do overtime," but when you cut it from what we 10 had it last year, they feel like they've done an excellent 11 job trying to keep it in and then they get penalized on top 12 of it by doing that. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: My question was, Rusty, 14 only one holiday remaining in this budget year, correct? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 16 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And does the projected 25 17 -- 25,2 does that reflect what you would be doing and paying 18 the holidays out of that? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The projected I have is 26,3. 20 I don't know what printout you have, but the projected -- 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm looking at 25,272. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: My projected end-of-year is 23 26,339. And that may be fairly close. There is still some 24 holidays. The 4th of July and all that have not come out of 25 any of this yet, which will up it. And those are holidays 7-20-10 bwk 14 1 you normally have extra officers out. I just think 35,000 2 for next year is going to be cutting it almost too close. 3 I'd rather see it go up. I asked for 55. Last year we spent 4 46. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Year before, you only spent 20. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because we were allowing 7 holidays to build up. We were not paying holidays year 8 before. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What -- what attributes to 10 the drop-off between 46,5 and the current projected? Just 11 less overtime? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Less overtime. We've been 13 trying to make them burn more off and do it that way, and 14 been suffering a little bit to do it. But I just think we're 15 cutting it too close. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How about 45? 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think we can work with that 18 a lot better. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: How about 40? (Laughter.) 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the number I had in 21 mind. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm outvoted. I tried, Rusty. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 38. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You like 37,5? 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 42,5? Put it at 40 if you 7-20-10 bwk 15 1 would, and we'll try and see where that goes. I can't 2 guarantee that would work. The second one that there was 3 actually some change in from the Judge is 208, investigation 4 expense. And I can agree with the Judge on his -- I had 5 asked for 9,900. He put it down at 7,500. There are some 6 things that could cost -- make that go up in cost. Number 7 one, investigative expense pays for all the sexual exams, the 8 victims and that, where we have to pay for it first and then 9 we get reimbursed. It goes in the general fund; we don't see 10 it. But it pays for that, and it also pays for all your 11 DVD's and C.D. copying and making for case reports, and it 12 can get pretty expensive. And I know that the County 13 Attorney is sitting here, and some of his changes in 14 procedures will drastically make my DVD expense probably 15 triple or quadruple. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What? Say it again. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: DVD videos. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He's going to make your 19 budget triple? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We're going to have a meeting 21 tomorrow to discuss some of that with other agencies, but 22 yes. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uh-oh. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It does appear that way. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 7-20-10 bwk 16 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm just a little bit 2 concerned. I don't mind trying it at 7,500. I won't -- 3 depending on what kind of criminal cases come across, I won't 4 say that we can stay within that budget. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: As you know, Rusty, that's based on 6 an annualization of what you've been using this year. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's correct. I agree. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Plus it gives you a $2,000 float 9 over what I've annualized this year at. So -- 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me -- let's go up one item to 12 liability insurance. Have you got some more premiums that 13 are going to be due this year? 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Those all go directly to the 15 Auditor, and I don't even have any knowledge of what those 16 premiums are. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now, we do have a couple of 19 lawsuits still pending as of this day. One was settled last 20 month, so I would imagine whatever portion is above your 21 deductible on that -- I don't know whether y'all are taking 22 those -- the actual attorney fees out of it. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis? On the deductibles for 24 suits against the jail, does that come out of that insurance 25 liability line item in the Sheriff's budget? 7-20-10 bwk 17 1 MS. HARGIS: No. No. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. HARGIS: We've been taking that out of 4 professional fees. We've only had one. We had one last 5 year, is all we had. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: The attorney's fees and the 7 deductible, which, of course, is normally for attorney's 8 fees. 9 MS. HARGIS: It's just the $1,000 deductible, I 10 think -- or $5,000 deductible. I forgot which one. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Ten. 12 MS. HARGIS: Is it 10 on that one? I think we had 13 one case last year, and we took it out of professional 14 development. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Liability insurance line item in the 16 Sheriff's budget, are there additional premiums that are 17 going to be due later on this year from that item? 18 MS. HARGIS: Yes. Yes. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 20 MS. HARGIS: They changed our renewal date on our 21 insurance, so we -- we have an accrual where we have nine 22 months and three months. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: So there's about another 30 -- 24 30,000 going to come out of there? 25 MS. HARGIS: Right. And we were supposed to make 7-20-10 bwk 18 1 those entries. I don't know if those got made or not. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, that answers the 3 question I had, 'cause there's about 30,000 remaining. 4 MS. HARGIS: Yes. I checked all the insurance 5 before. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7 MS. HARGIS: So it needs to be what it is. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 MS. HARGIS: We don't know what our liability is 10 going to be for him because of all the new cars. Our 11 insurance is going to, you know, go up a little bit. We did 12 the -- the property; we just got the premium on that one, but 13 the liability won't come till next month. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, thank you. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Is the property including the 16 -- the new annex out there? Is that going to come out of 17 this also? Or is that going to come out of something else? 18 MS. HARGIS: No, I think I put the new annex -- 19 actually, I believe I put the new annex in 409, because 20 there's other people in that, so I put that building under 21 409, insurance. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 23 MS. HARGIS: And we don't have the full premium on 24 that one; we just have a construction premium on that one 25 right now. 7-20-10 bwk 19 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Builder's risk, mm-hmm. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The other changes you made, 3 Judge, I have no problem with. I think we can -- we can live 4 within those, until you get down to crime prevention. It's a 5 small budget. I only asked for 1,000. We have not used any 6 this year, and that is due to the fact that we had a donation 7 into that account. We had a $5,000 donation, so we have been 8 spending that donated money instead of the budget money 9 first. I would still ask that that 1,000 stay in that 10 budget. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I don't know what we're going 13 to have next year. We're fixing to run a citizens' academy, 14 and then all our -- the inspections my crime prevention 15 officer does of homes, trying to help homeowners' insurance 16 costs, and talks and all that, her overtime and a lot of that 17 comes out of some of that. The only other one on that, if 18 you go back up to 461, 560-461, which is lease copier. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The one thing I did not add 21 into there, and I would like the Court to consider, is in the 22 new annex, I'm going to have to have another copy machine. 23 The cost of that copy machine for the lease is 232 a month, 24 and that gives us a limit on the number of copies, which I 25 would ask in covering that, and then with the limit that we 7-20-10 bwk 20 1 have, that line item -- I think you started out at -- it's at 2 9,564, but adding that next copier on there for 12 months and 3 covering any additional copies in case we do have to make 4 above what the limit is, which we normally do a little bit 5 each year, I would ask that we do 12,500 in that line for 6 that additional copier. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: That would be about the right 8 number. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And as far as the Sheriff's 10 Office budget, those are the only occurrences, except for one 11 that I'd like to just mention to this Court and have the 12 Court take into consideration, and that's your very first 13 one. Elected official's salary. And I'm not even going to 14 make a recommendation in there. I do think that the Court 15 needs to look at a couple things. In years past, this Court 16 did have a court order recommending $5,000 separation between 17 myself and the chief deputy's salary. That is not going to 18 be in effect this year. Can't be, the way it's set. There 19 will be just barely over 3,000 currently in our yearly 20 salary, so that court order, even though it's still in 21 effect, is not realistically in effect. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So you want us to lower the 23 chief deputy's salary? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, I do not. I think if you 25 look at things -- and I won't try and compare myself or try 7-20-10 bwk 21 1 and compare much to our neighbors across the street, or up 2 the block, however you want to call it, but I think this is 3 something that needs to seriously be looked at. That 4 department did do a salary study a few years ago, and they 5 did set their salaries according to that. Their second or 6 third in command, who has five years experience with 7 Kerrville Police Department, has a salary larger than your 8 Sheriff's position does, and I think that needs to be looked 9 at. I think it's -- maybe this year is the year that this 10 Court ought to look at setting salaries as far as 11 responsibilities and duties upon those elected officials that 12 they affect. The County's always done great in trying to 13 keep elected officials' salaries down, and every one of us as 14 elected officials knew what it was when we took office. I'm 15 not complaining there. Some of us -- I've been elected 10 16 years, but I've been with this county 30 this year, and I 17 think there's some things that need to be looked at that the 18 County has never looked at. And number one is, what are the 19 responsibilities of that position? What are the assets that 20 that position -- assets that the County has that that 21 position is responsible for? What are the number of 22 personnel that that position is responsible for? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying that we never 24 do that? 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What are the liabilities -- 7-20-10 bwk 22 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We do that every year. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And what are the liabilities 3 that that position has with it, okay? And more than what 4 this County has done before, Buster, is what I'm saying. 5 What I'm looking at and what I'm telling you is -- and I'll 6 have to -- and Buster doesn't like comparisons; I understand 7 that. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I sure don't. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But I think you have to look 10 at the form, that when you have a police department that 11 covers 22 square miles and a Sheriff's department that covers 12 1,100, a police department that has 60-something employees 13 and the Sheriff's Department that has right at 100, a police 14 department that has no liability for jails, and most of the 15 lawsuits I'm named in are after an arrest from the police 16 department -- not knocking the department; not saying they 17 did anything wrong, but it's not Sheriff's Department 18 arrests. And then the -- the assets that our department has 19 to take care of, the size of our budget that we're 20 responsible for. If the County's revenues are about 18, 19 21 million, the Sheriff's Department takes care of 7 million of 22 it this year, and I think it's time we start looking at that. 23 And when you look at the difference between those two 24 positions, even I have a hard time swallowing that that 25 position across the street or up the block is over 30,000 7-20-10 bwk 23 1 more than the Sheriff's position. 2 And I don't expect a comment. I would just 3 appreciate some consideration from this Court in looking at 4 it that way, and see where we can go in assisting our elected 5 officials' salaries this year. I think this Court -- as you 6 got from me in the paper the other day over some of the 7 collective bargaining, I think the Court's done real well 8 with salaries with employees of this county. But I know it's 9 a hot topic and a hot button for a lot of people, but I think 10 we seriously need to look at some of our elected officials' 11 salaries. So, that's the last thing I have in Sheriff's 12 budget, unless there's any questions. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We'll go to jail, which is 14 512. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The -- one of the things in 16 the jail budget that I am a little bit concerned of, I didn't 17 up it. You didn't change it, Judge, but in 512-309, postage, 18 I only asked for 1,200, and with the increase going up to 46 19 cents, I'm a little bit concerned, 'cause we do mail off a 20 lot of pen packs and paperwork out of the jail. I would like 21 to see that go up to at least 1,500. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What was that, Rusty? I'm 23 sorry. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The 309, postage. It's 25 currently 1,200. With postage going up to 46 cents, and 7-20-10 bwk 24 1 where we are and how much we mail, I think 1,500 would be 2 very close, but maybe we could at least stay within it. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're going to exceed your 4 budget this year. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think it's going to be close 6 to it. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, it's probably going to be 8 exceeding it. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The next line item I have is 11 315, jail uniforms. I agree with amortizing it the way you 12 did, Judge. You're right in lowering it from a $5,000 13 request to a $3,500 request. But what I was figuring in 14 there is those uniforms that those jailers -- this is the 15 jailers -- these are employees, not inmates. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not the inmates? 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. These uniforms that the 18 jailers are wearing are now three years old. We have 19 replaced a few, but I do expect to have to replace quite a 20 few of those uniforms this coming year, and I think that's 21 why we're looking at -- that's why I put in 5,000 for that. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you not replacing those kind of 23 in cycles during the year, every year, some of them? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. If they ruin one during 25 the year, we replace it, okay? If an employee leaves, then 7-20-10 bwk 25 1 those uniforms I have are dry cleaned and kept in the closet 2 for any new hire if they can wear them, if they fit. But 3 we've actually found it to be less expensive by replacing 4 them on an as-needed basis than replacing them every -- you 5 know, so many each year. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if you replace them on an 8 as-needed basis, the 3,500 would be within range. If I 9 annualize what you've done so far this year, that's just a 10 little over -- little under $3,200. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What I'm saying is, so far 12 this year and last year -- we replaced all of them; we 13 changed uniforms three years ago, okay? And we've kept 14 those -- pretty well those same uniforms. Every once in a 15 while, a new employee, we'll have to order more new ones or 16 somebody will ruin one or, you know, get worn out or, 17 unfortunately, change weight, size or whatever. But because 18 the majority of those uniforms are now three years old -- and 19 each officer gets three. I expect that to be a lot higher 20 this next year. I think we're going to be replacing a lot 21 more this coming year than what we did this year. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Have you considered an 23 automatic rotation type thing? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We used to do that. We used 25 to replace them every October, okay? But what you find out 7-20-10 bwk 26 1 in reality is you're replacing -- and this is from experience 2 as an officer. I got them -- every officer got two new 3 uniforms each October. Well, after a while, I ended up with 4 a closet full of older uniforms, because you're just 5 constantly replacing. If you replace them as they wear out 6 and as the employees come to you, we're really saving money 7 in the long run than what we are by constantly replacing 8 them. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Makes sense. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mainly, I'm having a hard time 11 understanding you, Sheriff. If you're replacing them as 12 needed, and that's what you've been doing, your number of 13 jail employees wearing those uniforms remains the same, and 14 it looks like if you annualize what you've spent so far this 15 year, it comes in at a little under $3,200. How -- how can 16 we project out to next year there's going to be, quote, a 17 whole lot more replacements? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you look back on the 2006-7 19 budget, you will see where we spent $12,486 on uniforms. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That's when you went to a new 21 uniform. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's when we replaced them 23 all. We've been on the majority of those uniforms since 24 '06-'07. Those uniforms -- I'm seriously expecting that now 25 that they're three years old, kind of like a pair of pants 7-20-10 bwk 27 1 with me or something that I'm going to end up replacing, 2 because they're needing a lot more of them this coming year, 3 because most of them have been -- you know, they've had them 4 for three years now. We've replaced some, ruined ones or 5 changing in size or change in personnel, but I expect us to 6 have to replace a lot more of them this year, because the 7 majority of them are three years old. That's why I put it at 8 5,000. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Any other questions on your budget, 10 Sheriff? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: In the jail medical, 333 -- 12 512-333, I have requested 30,000. You cut it back down to 13 15,000. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We all know that we have 16 contracted that medical out to a medical company that does 17 the majority of our medical, and then we have caps on where 18 we stand with that. What I am finding out, and I met with 19 them about three weeks ago, is we're right at our cap right 20 now. Unfortunately, this year there has been -- and we had a 21 meeting over this -- a lot more inmates sent over to the 22 hospital, a lot more inmates put on prescription meds than 23 what we had the first couple years with this company. And 24 that's why we had a meeting. The other thing that I did 25 authorize doing that we're paying for out of SCAAP funds, 7-20-10 bwk 28 1 those funds that we get for housing aliens, in trying to 2 combat this, is I ordered -- we ordered the other day an EKG 3 machine so that we can try and slow down some of the 4 ambulance trips for the -- for the, you know, chest problems 5 and things like that, because 90 percent of them, there's 6 nothing wrong. So, they are going to be doing that, which 7 will help. But this covers the cap alone, you know, what we 8 do above the cap. And Jeannie can tell you this from last 9 year. Last year, some of the stuff that we -- that actually 10 occurred before October of last year, we didn't get from the 11 company. They didn't send us their final bills until in 12 December, and so we were having to make budget amendments and 13 try and move a lot of money around, 'cause we weren't 14 prepared for that over that budget. What I'm trying to do 15 this year is be prepared for that, because it does end 16 October, and those meetings I've had with them, I told them I 17 need those as quickly as possible. Hopefully that we can get 18 them out of this current budget, 'cause it's this current 19 year's bills. But unfortunately, the way the hospital bills 20 and different medical people bill them, it can very well be 21 December before we get all of this year's bills in, and 22 that's what that 30,000 covers, is anything we're over the 23 cap. Two months ago, on medical, our cap on that I think is 24 50,000, and we were at 44 on prescriptions. I'm afraid of 25 this year. 7-20-10 bwk 29 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Prescription drugs? 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. I think we're going to 3 be over on our cap this current year, and I think we need to 4 get it at least to that. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What is the cap? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 50, part of that. So that's 7 why. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: We've got some of those inmates that 9 are carried under the Indigent Health Care program that would 10 include the prescription drugs. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Some are, but fewer and fewer 12 of the inmates are qualifying for the Indigent Health Care. 13 I think Rosa just pointed out that there's only two out of my 14 150 that are on Indigent Health Care. They changed that -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Of course, the one that's hard to 16 predict on that one is the bullet that you got to bite comes 17 at the end of the year. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: 'Cause that's when we total it up 20 and see whether or not you've exceeded the cap or haven't 21 exceeded the cap. What you can do, Sheriff, to the extent 22 that you see these things towards the end of a budget year, 23 is encumber the current year's budget for some period of time 24 after -- after the beginning of the new budget year. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Normally the County has always 7-20-10 bwk 30 1 advised me they could encumber the budget 30 days, one month 2 over. After that, it would come out of the following year's 3 budget, and that's where we end up with those problems. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: What we try and do. We've 5 encumbered further than that, depending on a particular 6 issue, and depending upon really the -- what type of 7 expenditures we're looking at. And if it's a significant 8 amount and it was budgeted for, we try and figure out a way 9 to handle it. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's my only concern, is on 11 -- on that. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm just not sure where that 14 is. I'd feel safer at 30,000. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: What's that running per month? 16 MS. HARGIS: It's only 12,000 right now, I think. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: The prescription meds, for example? 18 MS. HARGIS: Well, it's not consistent. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, it's not. 20 MS. HARGIS: See, they bill us, like, quarterly. I 21 think January was the last time we got one, so they haven't 22 billed us. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: In this last week, we had one 24 inmate that spent four days in the hospital, got out Sunday. 25 That's just a continuous deal. 7-20-10 bwk 31 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Why don't we kick that one back up 2 to about 25 and see if you can work there. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. Next line item would be 4 440, utilities. I had that set for this next year at 172. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You changed it to 150. My 7 only concern with that is I was projecting that the utilities 8 on the new building, the annex, would probably come out of my 9 Sheriff's Office budget, and that's the only concern I had. 10 If you think 150 is fine, I don't have a problem with it. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that the case? Or is it 12 going to be set up as a separate cost center? 13 MS. HARGIS: We haven't set up a separate cost 14 center for them. They probably will need to do that so we 15 can track it. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Because we got different occupants. 17 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That'll be separate. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Still going to include -- half 20 that building, or close to it, is Sheriff's office. 21 MS. HARGIS: She's already set it up as a separate 22 department. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: For the whole building? 24 MS. MABRY: For the whole building. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Then 150 may be fine, if it's 7-20-10 bwk 32 1 going to be set up different. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, your -- your utility bill 3 should be able to go down. You're going to get a whole bunch 4 of new air-conditioners, high-efficiency units. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I hope you're right. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: If not, there may be an operational 7 problem, as opposed to equipment problem, and we want to be 8 talking to you some more about that. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, that's fine. We have 10 lots of meetings throughout the year. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Monthly, sometimes bimonthly. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 487, training. I 13 requested 19,000; you cut it to 13,500. One thing that I 14 do -- I would request that you restore that back to the 15 19,000. That 5,000 that you cut out of there is 5,000 that 16 will cover part of a transportability study. That is going 17 to be -- the costs will be shared by the Sheriff's Office 18 training and the jail training, and this is the step that 19 will allow me a defensible liability-covered mandatory 20 physical fitness program for the Sheriff's Department. It 21 will include all deputies and jailers. There are three 22 different ways of getting that to where you can have some 23 liability coverage, and liability goes both ways in this. 24 We're seeing more and more Sheriff's Department or 25 law enforcement agencies sued for what is called negligent 7-20-10 bwk 33 1 retention, which is continuing to have employed people that 2 are unfit to be able to do the duties that they have to do 3 due to health, due to physical fitness. And what I am trying 4 to do -- this department has never in its history had a 5 physical fitness program. I think you will see that medical 6 bills, everything will drop drastically if we have one, but 7 the only good one that you can have where you can kind of -- 8 be kind of assured on it is a mandatory one. And to be able 9 to defend that in -- in a court of law, to where if I did, at 10 some unfortunate time, have to release somebody from duty due 11 to them not being able to perform the duties, then you end up 12 with a lawsuit or anything to defend that. 13 You can either do a full-blown study, kind of like 14 D.P.S. did statewide or other agencies have done. That study 15 will cost you anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000. You can do a 16 transportability study, which is the one I'm requesting, 17 which is where they have done a study on an agency your size, 18 and pretty well with your same duties, and you transport that 19 study down to your agency. They still come down and do an 20 individual study with the people. Because they don't have to 21 rewrite the whole program and what you can require and they 22 can defend it in court, then it's a lot cheaper, which is 23 25,000. That's why I split the cost of that between the jail 24 and the Sheriff's Office, 'cause that's actually two separate 25 studies they have to do, because the duties are different for 7-20-10 bwk 34 1 those two personnel. And then the other one is just making 2 up your own, which is where some have done that, and I know 3 one agency not very far from us lost their federal lawsuit 4 this current year over trying to do that. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: What's the total amount of that? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 25,000. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: And what you're suggesting is to 8 split that cost between the jail and Sheriff's Office? 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And you left it in my 12 Sheriff's Office training budget. You cut the 5,000 out of 13 the jail training budget. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Who's going to instruct the 15 program? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Hmm? 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Who's going to be the 18 instructor? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have two officers; the three 20 of us have gone through it. Two of my officers have -- well, 21 let me put it -- all three of us are law enforcement 22 specialists, training specialists. All three are certified. 23 I did it mainly for the liability; I want to learn what we 24 can do, okay? So, I don't envision myself instructing very 25 much of it. The other two officers are both accepted as law 7-20-10 bwk 35 1 enforcement specialists, and they have both just completed 2 and taken and passed and are now certified personal trainers. 3 This is not a weightlifting program. This is a physical 4 fitness program. I'm not worried about just weightlifting 5 and doing all that kind of stuff. We're worried about 6 fitness and being able to perform the duties. There will be 7 mandatory training in it, and there will be yearly testing in 8 it. Unfortunately, if you look at what's happening 9 nationwide, even your TAC magazine had it about that we're 10 getting to the point in law enforcement that more and more 11 agencies and legislators are requiring that you have it 12 inside your department because of the health concerns. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, I'm totally convinced 14 what you're saying is true, but you need to tell us the whole 15 story. I mean, are you going to -- is everybody going to be 16 dressed in pink, or are you going to go out in the yard and 17 run and do calisthenics, or what's going to happen here? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The transportability study 19 will give us the actual qualifications, whether it's -- it's 20 to pass that physical -- 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where are you going work 22 out? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We're going to work out out 24 there, a part of it there. The trainer that we use right now 25 has offered, okay? There are some options. And one thing 7-20-10 bwk 36 1 that I do have that will be on your August the 9th agenda for 2 the regular Commissioners Court to consider is use of half of 3 that unexpanded area for a fitness center. Not the whole 4 thing; it's about half of it, about 35 by 35 foot, where we 5 will go ahead and complete finishing it out with the air 6 conditioning and heat, the lighting the electrical outlet, 7 the mats and everything else, at no cost to the county 8 taxpayer dollars. I've had some people wanting to donate to 9 that. We've also got some seized funds that I believe I can 10 use for law enforcement purposes. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. That's exactly 12 what I was looking for, thank you. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But that will be on your 14 August 9th agenda. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No pink? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No pink. If I put them all in 17 pink, I'd be the one physically fit, 'cause I'd have to run 18 until I couldn't run any more. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's just for prisoners 20 only, right? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Could get there. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: You increased your -- your Sheriff's 23 Department budget -- training budget by 15. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: From last year -- let me look 25 at where I had it. 7-20-10 bwk 37 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Trust me, that's what you got. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: 18 to 33. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Uh-huh. I actually increased 5 this one by 10, and you cut it by 5. But I increased it more 6 than 10 because of some of the training. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where does -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: If we increased the other one by 10, 10 that will get you to your 25, right? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Say again? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we increased your Sheriff's 13 Department budget by 15 to account for that portion of the -- 14 the portability study or whatever -- transportability study. 15 18 to 33. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So that's 15 of the 25. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: So you need 10 more, right? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: So increase your budget from this 22 year to next year 10,000 to cover the balance of it, right? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, correct. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, 14,000. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you look at our current 7-20-10 bwk 38 1 training for this year in the jail, okay, projected end of 2 the year was 3,970. Current budget of 4,000 -- no, no. 3 Projected end-of-year was 5,294 -- 5,300 of a current budget 4 of 4,000, so that's going to be over on that. And then -- so 5 I upped the regular training budget a little, and then I 6 added that back in there too for transportability study. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: So you're going to be over budget 8 this year? 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: How are you going to do that? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Rob Peter to pay Paul. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: What if a budget amendment's not 13 approved? 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We're going to work on that. 15 I'm looking at projected end of year. I've already told -- 16 and anybody that's behind me in my department can tell you 17 that we ended all training for this year in both Sheriff's 18 Office and jail. There will be no more training approved the 19 rest of this year. That came out a week ago. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about the citizens' 21 academy program? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That doesn't -- none of that 23 comes out of my training. That's crime prevention. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll take you to 15 on that. 7-20-10 bwk 39 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are we bidding now? Or -- 2 JUDGE TINLEY: No, we're through. We're through 3 with that. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Over. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We've got some -- some 6 vehicle issues that we want to look at prospectively, and I 7 believe Ms. Hargis has done some work on that. I'd like to 8 -- and this relates probably more to your budget than anybody 9 else's, so I'm going to let Ms. Hargis -- 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: First off, real quick, as far 11 as courthouse security budget, my third one, I don't believe 12 you made any changes, and I don't -- 13 JUDGE TINLEY: I don't even have it in my book 14 here. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's 636-104. 16 MS. HARGIS: It's a special fund, 29. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 29 is the deal. Maybe that's 18 why you didn't make any changes. Of course, -- 19 JUDGE TINLEY: That's probably true. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- I didn't ask for anything, 21 but I don't see anything else in there. I haven't -- I 22 haven't changed anything in those line items from this year 23 to last year. There's not much equipment in there. It's 24 coming out of that capital improvement fund on the redoing of 25 the video and that, so the only thing that will change, of 7-20-10 bwk 40 1 course, is the FICA and the salary stuff and that. 2 Otherwise, I don't see any in that budget. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, there's not that -- not that 4 much in there anyway. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's a very small budget to 6 begin with. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis? 10 MS. HARGIS: Gentlemen, we've been discussing the 11 new vehicle program and the possibilities of how we might 12 approach buying vehicles in the future, and one of our local 13 vendors has some suggestions that he would like to present to 14 the Court and explain. And I'd like to introduce Mike Hebert 15 with Ken Stoepel Ford. And I think each of you have a flyer 16 that he's going to go over with you about the possibility of 17 rotating these vehicles and trading them in on a -- on an 18 earlier basis to save money. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: May I have a flyer? 20 JUDGE TINLEY: We may need to make some more of 21 these. Here we go. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you, sir. 23 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, Mr. Hebert. 25 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir. Good afternoon, gentlemen. 7-20-10 bwk 41 1 Basically, what this is, gentlemen, right now we're 2 purchasing -- or the County's purchasing some 2010 F-150 3 super crews. Cost on those to the County is approximately 4 $22,000. Looking at the -- what's been traded in the past, 5 vehicles have been pretty worn-out, used and abused. And I'm 6 thinking, looking back, if we had some 2008 trucks, if you 7 would have purchased two years ago, with 50,000 miles on 8 them, you would have gotten approximately $17,000 with 50,000 9 miles on them. And that's a little -- the number's a little 10 inflated right now coming out of -- in the car industry, with 11 the market the way it's been. It's probably a more realistic 12 number, about 15,000 on trade-in. So, basically, two years 13 ago you would have spent $20,000 for a 2008 F-150, and today 14 we are replacing it for $5,000, with 50,000 miles on it. 15 When a vehicle gets to 50,000 miles, it needs tires and needs 16 a complete transmission flush, all fluid changes, which runs 17 about $2,000. So, for five grand, you could have got a 18 brand-new vehicle, and that's what we're proposing. Looking 19 at a 2-year/50,000, 2-year/60, or a 3-year turn on new 20 vehicles. Realistic number two years from now may be closer 21 to 12,000 for the vehicle, 12 to 13. And I can't project the 22 future, naturally, but that's a good close number for us to 23 be -- to consider. So, you're looking at about $8,000 for a 24 new truck in two years, with no maintenance experience, 25 'cause the vehicle is under warranty up to 60,000 miles, 7-20-10 bwk 42 1 power train. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Power train warranty is to 60? 3 5-year/60? 4 MR. HEBERT: That's correct, sir. Transmission 5 flush, they want -- normally that does happen at 50,000 6 miles, which is $874 to do that to a vehicle, plus your 7 tires. So, it's approximately $2,000 at 50,000. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Sheriff, correct me if my numbers 9 are -- here a few years ago, when we bought the last batch of 10 Crown Vics, we put them on a three-year with Ford Motor 11 Credit, our government contract, and we were paying 7,300, 12 7,500, in that range, and it was taking us three years to pay 13 them off. Is that about right? 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's pretty close. Now, the 15 one thing I would point out to the Court in this, this is an 16 S model 2008 Ford F-150; it's not a police package vehicle. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: I understand. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. Big difference in that, 19 in a pickup and a police package. Number two, I don't think 20 the Crown Vic is -- police package is going to be made very 21 many more years. 22 MR. HEBERT: It's gone. Yes, sir. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I thought it was gone now. 24 Your best police package is your Tahoe. So, this has nothing 25 to do with police cars. Now, where it could have a big 7-20-10 bwk 43 1 impact is your unmarked cars, my criminal investigators' 2 cars, okay? We run with unmarked cars. Counting, like, the 3 chief deputy has one, the captains have one, and then all the 4 investigators and that, close to 15 to 18 of those cars. The 5 one thing I will say about that to this County is, in 10 6 years, the county budget -- outright budget has not paid for 7 any of those vehicles, even though I run that many, and we've 8 replaced a number of them. I replaced those either with 9 seized funds, seized vehicles that we trade in, or seized 10 vehicles that we put on the road. Or once in a while we have 11 been able to either trade in or get rid of some of the old 12 Crown Vics, like we're fixing to, and the funds from those 13 are either -- either we trade those for a C.I.D. vehicle or 14 we get the funds from those auctions and try and find a 15 C.I.D. vehicle. So, as far as all the unmarked vehicles that 16 the Sheriff's Office has had, county budget hasn't paid for 17 those, okay? I know they do for all the courthouse, Road and 18 Bridge and all that; it may be a better program for that. I 19 would not mind looking at the program for C.I.D., 'cause it's 20 better vehicles, and normally you're going to get a seized 21 one or you're going to get something else, except those 22 haven't cost this county. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Mr. Hebert? 24 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I gather you're -- you handle fleet 7-20-10 bwk 44 1 accounts over there? 2 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: With Stoepel? 4 MR. HEBERT: That is correct, sir. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: The Crown Vics with the police 6 package are history? 7 MR. HEBERT: They are on the way out, yes, sir. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 MR. HEBERT: I have not checked for 2011 production 10 on that. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: It appears to me that a lot of 12 agencies are going to the -- the bigger S.U.V. type units. 13 MR. HEBERT: That is correct, the -- the Tahoe as 14 well as the Expedition, which is what we have done. It's an 15 S.S.V., which is special service vehicle. That is a police 16 package. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 18 MR. HEBERT: In the Ford line. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: You're anticipating my question, 20 whether or not the Expeditions were going to come out with 21 something similar to -- we see a lot of the Tahoes and that 22 is police package type. 23 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Heavy-duty suspension, coolers and 25 so forth. 7-20-10 bwk 45 1 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir, that is correct. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Relative to the regular XL 3 Expedition, what do those -- what are those Expedition SSV's 4 going to be running? 5 MS. MABRY: You got the numbers on that yet? 6 MR. HEBERT: 21,2. 7 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, we got them down even lower. 8 MR. HEBERT: I saved another $800 on that the other 9 day, last week, and I submitted my bids. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the S.S.V.? 11 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 12 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: I appreciate you coming. 14 MR. HEBERT: 21,2, but I think she's got -- I gave 15 her a bid on that, and also had Angel come over, and Angel 16 and I went over the vehicle specs, and Angel's very satisfied 17 with the specifications of the -- 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 19 MR. HEBERT: -- Expedition. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I'm not asking you to -- I 21 understand there's some bid requests outstanding, so I don't 22 want to get into that, because that might compromise your 23 position. But anybody got any more questions for Mr. Hebert? 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. I appreciate you 25 working with us like this. 7-20-10 bwk 46 1 MR. HEBERT: Yes, sir, you're quite welcome. As 2 far as the S.U.V.'s, keep in mind that that is going to be an 3 S.S.V. vehicle, so if we do trade those in, we have to 4 consider the nuts and bolts and the holes and everything else 5 on that, on a trade-in, 'cause that's not going to be a 6 normal retail, understand. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 8 MR. HEBERT: Like I can do. But once again, you do 9 have buyers for those that can -- if we look at that down the 10 road too and want to put a plan together, we can get some 11 ballpark numbers for you on that. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Have you got any questions 13 for us? 14 MR. HEBERT: No, sir. I appreciate your time. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: We appreciate you coming here and 16 giving us the benefit of your information. 17 MR. HEBERT: Thank you, sir. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 19 MR. HEBERT: You bet. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Crime Victims. What's the 22 number on that one, Buster? 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, I don't know. 24 MS. HARGIS: 438. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're going to have to do 7-20-10 bwk 47 1 some of this work yourself. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What page? 3 MS. HARGIS: Page is 17. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 17? 5 MS. HARGIS: Should be. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Gentlemen, as a practical matter, 7 there's not a whole lot we can do there anyway, 'cause that 8 is all grant-driven. And I think Ms. Lavender said we 9 could -- 10 MS. HARGIS: 33. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: -- we could adjust her mileage a 12 little bit. 13 MS. LAVENDER: Either that, or adjust my trips. I 14 would point out that under office supplies, we include 15 postage in it, because our grant doesn't separate out postage 16 like the rest of the funds do. And this year, we're going to 17 split the cost of a copy machine between Indigent Health and 18 Crime Victims, because I'm tired of sneaking around and 19 waiting for somebody to be gone so I can run in and use their 20 copy machine. (Laughter.) 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I think we've included -- 22 MS. LAVENDER: Y'all didn't know that, did you? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: -- copier in the Indigent Health 24 Care budget, didn't we? 25 MS. LAVENDER: Right. 7-20-10 bwk 48 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Because of yours being tied to the 2 grant. 3 MS. LAVENDER: Right, exactly. So that's the 4 reason there's a slight increase in our office supply budget, 5 is for the impending postage. I have been serving crime 6 victims not only in Kerr County, but also in Bandera and 7 Gillespie County, and Kimble, Mason, Menard, and McCulloch 8 County this last year. That's a part of the federal grant. 9 On a pretty limited basis, but primarily for crime victims 10 compensation claims and for victim impact statement purposes. 11 I've been trying to do some of these out-of-counties too, but 12 that's all included in that grant money. It's not a -- 13 anything out of the Kerr County budget that would be 14 different because of that. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Ms. Lavender? 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 17 MS. LAVENDER: You're welcome. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Indigent Health Care is way back 19 yonder somewhere, Fund 50, 641. 20 MS. LAVENDER: 641. Gentlemen, you've been 21 watching each month as we've done our monthly reports about 22 what's been happening with our Indigent Health budget. We 23 are significantly down this year, as we were last year. Good 24 management. And Dawn's here, so you all can give her an 25 attaboy, 'cause she does a really good job with this, keeping 7-20-10 bwk 49 1 our costs down. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Who is that? 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Dawn Lantz. 4 MS. LAVENDER: The one that shares the office, you 5 know, the other side of the office. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Didn't know there was 7 anybody in there. 8 MS. LAVENDER: You thought I was doing all of this 9 myself, huh? But our -- our total spent through June 30th 10 this year is 172,000, which is significantly down, 11 particularly from year before last, when we took the program 12 over. As you know, state law requires that we determine what 13 8 percent of our total gross revenue tax levy is, and that's 14 what we're not supposed to be over, because when we go over 15 that, then the State steps in. And this year's G.R.T.L. will 16 probably be about 1.4 million, so if we only spent 172,000 17 and we could spend up to 1.4 million, we're doing pretty good 18 with this program. As of today, I believe we have 14 people 19 on the program. Two of them are inmates that Rusty's 20 housing, and we're very careful to be sure that the people 21 who are put on the program qualify for the program. We're 22 not keeping people off. We're truly serving the people that 23 are the kind of people that deserve this kind of help from 24 the County. And, again, it's been a -- you know, it's been a 25 lot of work to be sure that the people that we have on the 7-20-10 bwk 50 1 program are the truly qualified people. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Don't you think that that's 3 the key to your success? 4 MS. LAVENDER: Right. Right, the fact that we have 5 the option -- the ability to do more research on them and be 6 sure that they truly qualify. And some of them tell us 7 pretty funny stories, the ones that come back and reapply 8 that were on the program five years ago or something, and 9 they tell us these stories, and it's been an interesting 10 deal. We would point out that in February, our inpatient 11 rates went up, and also our outpatient rates went up. The 12 physicians' service rates are Medicaid-driven, and those 13 rates are determined by the Texas Department of Health and 14 Human Services. We have no control over those. That's Item 15 641-200 in your budget. And 641-205 and -206 are also 16 governed by the state health people, and we really have no 17 input into what rates they choose. And in February, they did 18 increase our rates. Our inpatient rates went from 26 to 31 19 percent, and our outpatient rates went from 46 to 51 percent, 20 so that there's some increase in what we would pay out to the 21 hospital and to physicians and stuff that we have no control 22 over. And as long as we coast along where we are, don't have 23 any major pay-outs, we're probably in good shape, but if we 24 have some kind of a major change in the system, then we would 25 have to come back and ask for more money. We are concerned. 7-20-10 bwk 51 1 And Dawn's here; she can shake her head yes or no a little 2 bit about the cuts we've made this year. And the Judge knows 3 that; we've haggled over this a couple of times. But we've 4 readjusted it, and we feel like maybe we can -- we can stay 5 under this number. I think the total for the year is 30 -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: 322. 7 MS. LAVENDER: Yeah, 322. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Almost 330. 9 MS. LAVENDER: Which is down considerably, almost 10 $200,000 from the current year's budget. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Good. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about -- how does it 13 compare -- how does that number compare with the last year 14 that it was before we brought it over here? 15 MS. LAVENDER: It was 1.2 million the year before 16 we brought it over here. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 1.2 million down to 322,000? 18 MS. LAVENDER: Yeah, something like that. But 19 there was some times in there that, because of management 20 issues where they had people -- vacant office people, and we 21 ended up having to pay out the total $30,000 deals, that that 22 was what ran it up that year quite a bit too. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Good job. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wonderful. 25 MS. LAVENDER: If you got any other questions, 7-20-10 bwk 52 1 she'll be glad to answer them. (Laughter.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: If the water gets hot, it's time for 3 her to come in, right? 4 MS. LAVENDER: Right. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I see. 6 MS. LAVENDER: She gets all the credit for it. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: We reworked some of those numbers. 8 They started out with most of them down -- some of the major 9 ones down significantly, but we made some adjustments in some 10 of the smaller ones, even. And -- 11 MS. LAVENDER: And we are concerned about what the 12 federal health legislation's going to do to us, just like we 13 are with the employee health plan too. We -- that's the 14 great unknown out there that -- that we don't know what 15 impact it's going to have. The people that are on Indigent 16 Health are not going to have health insurance under the 17 federal program. You know, they're not going to -- that's 18 not going to change. But pay-out amounts could change, 19 because if the medical community comes to the state and says, 20 "We're not making enough money; will you raise our rates?" 21 We'll see an increase. And they do that by county. And I 22 was telling the Judge day before yesterday when we were 23 talking, there are some counties in the state of Texas that 24 pay up to 96 percent. And we're at 51 and whatever the other 25 one was, so I guess we're still pretty lucky. 7-20-10 bwk 53 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Several counties that 2 exceed it. 3 MS. LAVENDER: Right. And we don't, but that's the 4 percentage of the deal. And so there's -- you know, and I 5 talked with Representative Hilderbran, and then his office 6 has called me too. We're asking for some clarification, 7 maybe from the Legislature, on the indigent program on, "What 8 is residency requirement?" Because we're seeing more and 9 more halfway houses and shelter-type people coming and 10 applying, and technically, those people are not permanent 11 residents of Kerr County, and so at this point they are not 12 on the program. But if a clarification can be done, there 13 needs to be some. And we see very little of it, but, you 14 know, the counties along the border, Val Verde and Maverick 15 and Hidalgo Counties, where they deal also with a lot of 16 transient people in their counties seeking medical care, it 17 would be good if the Legislature would put a little 18 definition on what is a resident of a county for indigent 19 health purposes. So, we're looking forward to the 20 Legislative session and see if that comes up. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's one county within 22 the AACOG region that is looking for state reimbursement, 23 which tells me they've gone over. 24 MS. LAVENDER: And when we do that -- 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And I've offered to -- to 7-20-10 bwk 54 1 personally escort you two ladies down there to give them some 2 ideas how it might be done. Thus far, the County Judge 3 hasn't accepted my offer. 4 MS. LAVENDER: That's because my travel expenses 5 are limited. He's trying to keep the budget down. 6 (Laughter.) Anything else? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for Ms. Lavender? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 9 MS. LAVENDER: Thank you. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you, ma'am. Keep up the good 11 work. 12 MS. LAVENDER: Thanks. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Now we go to D.P.S. That's 10-580. 14 I would note that we have three representatives here from the 15 Department of Public Safety. All armed, gentlemen. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Armed? 17 JUDGE TINLEY: All armed, yes. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a message there. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What else do you want? Page 20 82. 21 SGT. LALONDE: Ready, Judge? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: I think the only thing I tried to 23 slap you around on was your equipment, because you've done 24 very little this year to-date, so I reduced that. 25 SGT. LALONDE: Yes, sir. 7-20-10 bwk 55 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that going to create a problem 2 for you? 3 SGT. LALONDE: Can I ask if you'd just make it 800? 4 Would that be too much? Reason why, we've already spent 400 5 and, I think, 25, and it will be at the next meeting as far 6 as brought up what we spent on that as far as equipment 7 purchased. Otherwise, you have no complaints from me, Judge. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: You're easy. Put your pistols up, 9 boys. (Laughter.) Okay, that's plugged in. 10 SGT. LALONDE: Any questions? 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you for the work that you do. 12 SGT. LALONDE: Thank you, Judge. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: We appreciate it. 14 SGT. LALONDE: Thank you. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Road and Bridge. 16 MR. ODOM: Hopefully I won't take as much time as 17 Rusty took. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We hope not either. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Gee. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And make some sense. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. When we ask you to tell us 22 what time it is, Leonard, please don't tell us how to build a 23 watch. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wonder what page Leonard 25 would be on. 7-20-10 bwk 56 1 MS. HARGIS: He's in Fund 15, so you're going to 2 have to go into there and go on in 15. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Say it again? Maybe I 4 pulled it up. 5 MS. HARGIS: Fund 15. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Translated, that goes to 7 what page? 8 MS. HARGIS: Hang on a second. It's way down 9 there. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 108. 11 MS. HARGIS: There you go. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Mr. Odom, as has become 13 customary in past years, after you and I, the first couple of 14 years, had our discussions over your budget, I have found 15 that your method of budgeting was probably a little bit more 16 refined than mine, so I got only a couple of questions for 17 you. 18 MR. ODOM: All right, sir. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: On your software maintenance, my 20 understanding was most of that was going to be laid over to 21 I.T. 22 MR. ODOM: Yes, I believe so. Am I right, Kelly, 23 on that? 24 MS. HOFFER: I believe so. 25 MR. ODOM: We've discussed that, and it had to do 7-20-10 bwk 57 1 with I.T., so whatever it is. 2 MS. HOFFER: I think the only thing that I know of 3 is that ArcView program. Looks like 9.1 or 9.3 is a newer 4 program; that I know we wanted to upgrade eventually to that, 5 and we're looking to see if somehow we could put it on the 6 server that all of us could share. One computer has a 7 program, like, from 2000 or 2001, and another computer has 8 from a different year, and I think I've got one from, like, 9 2003. And then John Hewitt's laptop for the floodplain has 10 the one that's, like, 9.1 or 9.3. The only reason why we 11 have that is because I.T. -- or Environmental Health was kind 12 enough to loan us that program. But I don't know how many 13 connections you can do off of that program, you know, based 14 on purchasing it once. I don't know enough about it. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, in this year's budget, you 16 show 2,750, and to-date, nothing's spent, at least from what 17 I've got here. And I requested 2,100 for next budget year 18 that we're working now. And I guess my question to you, is 19 this something -- here's the I.T. man. Road and Bridge, I.T. 20 software, does that all come over now? 21 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 MR. ODOM: Can you look up that -- 2,150? No, 24 2,100. 25 MR. TROLINGER: It will need to be moved. I don't 7-20-10 bwk 58 1 have it in the current I.T. budget. 2 MS. HOFFER: I do know a portion of that, I believe 3 we get upgrades on a program that we use; it's R & B IMS 4 programming that we use for our service requests, and we also 5 use that program for -- I put FEMA -- current FEMA rates in, 6 and they send us automatic updates, like the hourly rate for 7 equipment use and emergency use, different things like that. 8 I don't know -- 9 MR. ODOM: Yeah. We -- 10 MS. HOFFER: -- if there is a yearly charge on 11 that. I do believe that there is a yearly charge on that in 12 order for them to send us the updates. I don't think it's 13 quite up to that 2,100. 14 MR. ODOM: The estimate I have, my note here says 15 we estimated maintenance at 1,750, and then there was $350 16 other. So that -- 17 JUDGE TINLEY: For this update that you're talking 18 about, Kelly? 19 MS. HOFFER: Well, that they send us. They send 20 us -- I don't know if it's every quarter, or if it's like 21 every six months, they send us an update that goes on through 22 the computer. It automatically -- you know, it will change 23 your FEMA rates and things like that. If there's any changes 24 in that software, it will change it. But that's about the 25 only thing that I can think of that -- that we would have. 7-20-10 bwk 59 1 If I.T. is going to cover all the other software, like I 2 said, the one thing that I eventually would like to upgrade 3 is the ArcView programs, 'cause we have some old layers and 4 some of the parcel information is isn't real up to date. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Leonard? 6 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Did I just understand from you that 8 you've tried to put an estimated amount in there? 9 MR. ODOM: That's -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: For that update, as well as the 11 other requirements? 12 MR. ODOM: That's right. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So, essentially what we need 14 to do is, the total amount of the budget will remain the 15 same, since it's not yet been accounted for in the I.T. 16 budget. We just move from it yours over to his. 17 MR. ODOM: That's fine. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: So the bottom line number remains 19 the same. It just comes out of yours, goes to his, right? 20 MR. ODOM: Right. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, the only comment I have 23 is for the Auditor. I think we need to change one of the 24 headings. I thought it used to be different, but on 25 Leonard's salary, I think it should say "Administrator's 7-20-10 bwk 60 1 Salary." 2 JUDGE TINLEY: You're exactly right. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 4 MR. ODOM: Yeah. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought it used to say 6 administrator's salary, but anyway, it needs to say 7 administrator's salary, not engineer's. 8 MS. HARGIS: No, I've never changed it. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I always read it that way, but 10 anyway -- 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Picky, picky, picky. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It just -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Always wanting to do things 14 the right way. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A little housework, just 16 keeping everything -- in case someone looks at this, I don't 17 want someone throwing rocks. 18 MR. ODOM: They always do. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Change the target. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Tess, let me get back to the 21 Indigent Health Care. Did you add a lease copier item on the 22 Indigent Health Care budget? 23 MS. MABRY: Let me look. She said it was included 24 in office supplies. 25 MS. HARGIS: It's included in office supplies. 7-20-10 bwk 61 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Hmm? 2 MS. HARGIS: It's included in office supplies. 3 MS. MABRY: Yes. 4 MS. HARGIS: See? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I know it is in the Crime Victims. 6 Is it included in the -- 7 MS. HARGIS: Indigent Health, it's included in the 8 office supplies there as well. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MS. HARGIS: She's got a note on it. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Okay. Then we'll go to 611. 12 Right, Leonard? 13 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. The KCAD contract, 15 Ms. Hargis -- 16 MS. HARGIS: That's his portion. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. That's this year's number? 18 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We'll need to put that 20 contract on the Court's agenda for action. 21 MS. GRINSTEAD: I'm sorry? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: KCAD contract. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We haven't reviewed that -- 24 reviewed their budget. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Len, the question I have is the 7-20-10 bwk 62 1 -- either contract fees or your right-of-way. Assuming we 2 get the Hermann Sons right-of-way and that project behind us, 3 which I need to visit with you on outside of this, but the 4 Lane Valley project also, because I think that we probably 5 need to get moving on that. Just to make sure, I'm not 6 sure -- those numbers don't look like that's enough for 7 right-of-way acquisition. 8 MR. ODOM: You think fences and all -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The whole bit. I think that's 10 going to -- looking at, you know, probably closer to 40,000 11 for that one project on the right-of-way fencing. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You said Lane Valley. Did 13 you mean -- you mean Lane Valley, or you mean Hermann Sons? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Hermann Sons, we're working on 15 now, and I think Len has enough in this year's budget to 16 accommodate that. But two years ago we've also done survey 17 work on Lane Valley trying to straighten a lot of that out. 18 We've never -- we really -- in my mind, Hermann Sons was our 19 priority, and it's costing more than we thought originally. 20 And -- but the Hermann Sons -- the Lane Valley project, you 21 know, I would like to try to accomplish that and straighten 22 that road out. That traffic's increased out there a lot. 23 MR. ODOM: Well, we'd be guessing. Would it make 24 any difference if we added it now? Or either -- my cash 25 balance is pretty high, so we could always go back in and add 7-20-10 bwk 63 1 to contract fees if we had to. I mean, six of one, half a 2 dozen of another. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I mean, but we -- I need 4 to talk to you about another item. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Surprises? 6 MR. ODOM: All right. Well, you have a better 7 guess. You're probably right, at least another 40 for fences 8 and -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 10 MR. ODOM: -- and dozer work and all. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And you may not get all 12 of that part of it done, but at least get started on it. But 13 you got 40,000 in contract fees and, what, 2,000 in 14 right-of-way, so I think another 20,000 in contract fees 15 would be in line to get that going. 16 MR. ODOM: To get it going? I would -- 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you suggesting we add that in 18 now, Commissioner? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes, sir. 20 MR. ODOM: So, in other words, you would add 20 to 21 that 40? Or do you go back to the 45? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 20 to the 40. I mean, I don't 23 know what else you have. I think that project's going to be 24 close to 40,000, so I don't know what else you have, you 25 know, in your numbers for the contract fees. 7-20-10 bwk 64 1 MR. ODOM: Well, I have -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We can put it under the 3 right-of-way; doesn't make any difference. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's a pretty good balance 5 in his reserves, too. 6 MR. ODOM: Yeah, 'cause I had 20 in there, thinking 7 I might spend it up on Lane Valley. 8 MS. HARGIS: So, are we going to put it -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: There's a hook here somewhere; we 10 just don't know what it is. Leonard? 11 MR. ODOM: Yes, sir? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll bet you can tell us within $100 13 what your present cash balance is today, can't you? 14 MR. ODOM: Probably pretty close. I'll get it in 15 there pretty close. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner? No matter what 17 Mr. Odom has told you, what do you want to do with the 18 contract -- 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think leave it the way he has 20 it. I think we can work through adjustments. 21 MR. ODOM: I had about 20 in there -- 20, 25 out of 22 this 40 that I thought we might be -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 24 MR. ODOM: -- in there. So -- 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we're all right. 7-20-10 bwk 65 1 MR. ODOM: I mean, if we need more, I'll come back 2 to you. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 4 MS. HARGIS: Come on, let's bet on that one. I 5 just told him what it was five minutes ago. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: You might have just confirmed it. 7 I'll bet you he already knew what that balance was. 8 MS. HARGIS: No, it's a little higher than he 9 thought it was. So -- 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, okay. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: He may be counting the outstanding 12 that you don't have in yet. 13 MS. HARGIS: I hope not. So does he. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Mr. Odom? 15 MS. MABRY: Just to clarify, are there any changes 16 on making this 40,000? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: No, hmm-mm. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Don't need to. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Why don't we take us about a 21 15-minute recess? 22 (Recess taken from 2:26 p.m. to 2:47 p.m.) 23 - - - - - - - - - - 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order. I 25 want to go ahead and recess the budget workshop, and I'm 7-20-10 bwk 66 1 going to reconvene the Commissioners Court meeting relative 2 to the one item on the agenda for today. 3 (Special Commissioners Court meeting reconvened, the transcript of which is in a separate document.) 4 - - - - - - - - - - 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I will reconvene the workshop. 6 County Clerk. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Page 11. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: 403. Okay, I made some adjustments, 9 and I've got at least one question. With regard to the 10 telephone, this transition over to -- Mr. Trolinger, when do 11 you think we're going to get transferred over in our 12 telephone service? 13 MR. TROLINGER: About 6 p.m. tonight. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: When? 15 MR. TROLINGER: Tonight, hopefully. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Tonight? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that from Windstream to 18 whomever? 19 MR. TROLINGER: Yes. The 2200 block of numbers 20 will move tonight. It's not -- it won't be 100 percent 21 finished. We still have miscellaneous fax lines and whatnot, 22 but -- 23 JUDGE TINLEY: But looking into next budget year, 24 we can rely upon the -- basically, the per-station cost that 25 you've given to us? 7-20-10 bwk 67 1 MR. TROLINGER: Yes. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. And that amount per station 3 is approximately? 4 MR. TROLINGER: The last number I received from the 5 Auditor's office was $4.56. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Per month, per station? 7 MR. TROLINGER: Yes. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 MS. PIEPER: We have 17 phones, 'cause I think they 10 got the break for them on ours as well. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 4.56. 12 MS. MABRY: Comes out to be 930 for the entire 13 year. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: I come up a little bit over $1,000. 15 Probably be safe going to 1,200 on that. Okay. Do you have 16 any questions on any of the adjustments that I've made, 17 Ms. Pieper? 18 MS. PIEPER: No, sir, but I do have an adjustment 19 that you can make. On overtime, Line Item 112, we can drop 20 that down to 1,000. That was for overtime for juvenile 21 court, but going back over time sheets and stuff, we're not 22 going to need that much. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Were you -- I believe you -- 24 I talked to you today and you said you were going to be down 25 an employee for next year? 7-20-10 bwk 68 1 MS. PIEPER: Yes, that is correct. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Is that reflected in this? 3 MS. PIEPER: No, that is reflected in my 10-404 4 budget, I believe. I didn't do any of the salary line items. 5 MS. HYDE: We haven't done salary yet. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. 7 MS. PIEPER: So salary and FICA and all that's 8 not -- not accurate, I don't think. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, that's done by the 10 departments. Okay. Okay, any other questions or adjustments 11 that you have -- 12 MS. PIEPER: No, sir. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that you want to talk about? 14 Okay. Records Management, 404. 15 MS. PIEPER: There will be -- the salary will 16 decrease in that due to one less employee, because the 17 filings are down. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. But that adjustment's going 19 to be made by H.R. and the Auditor? 20 MS. PIEPER: Correct, by one of them. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Can I ask you a question? 23 Is that employee already gone? 24 MS. PIEPER: That employee is no longer with us; 25 that is correct. 7-20-10 bwk 69 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Then you've got -- 3 MS. PIEPER: I have the 41-634, which is the 4 Records Archival. That's the one that we had to have that 5 public hearing on, and the only thing that's coming out of 6 this budget is my second payment of three payments for a 7 total of -- well, for the year, of 67,446, which is our 8 payment to eDoc. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: That's reflected on -- on the 10 proposed budget that you furnished to us here? 11 MS. PIEPER: Correct. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 MS. PIEPER: And that's the one that we had to have 14 that public hearing on? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I think that's all of yours, 16 isn't it? 17 MS. PIEPER: That's it. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's go to the County 19 Treasurer. We weren't able to take that one up the other 20 day. That's 497, correct? 21 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Page 51. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Page what? 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 51. 25 MS. WILLIAMS: The only item, Judge, that you and I 7-20-10 bwk 70 1 discussed, I think it was a week ago Monday, was the books, 2 publications, and dues. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 4 MS. WILLIAMS: I do need that to be $375. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: And I restored that. 6 MS. WILLIAMS: Okay. I think everything else I can 7 probably live with. I looked at it, and I think it should be 8 workable. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MS. WILLIAMS: That's it. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Saved a few bucks, didn't we? 12 MS. WILLIAMS: Yes, sir. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Always nice. 15 MS. HARGIS: Where's your training, Mindy? 16 MS. WILLIAMS: 485, conferences. I think that will 17 be enough. 18 MS. HARGIS: Not with that -- with those -- 19 MS. WILLIAMS: Oh, with the -- 20 MS. HARGIS: The proposed additional educational 21 requirements that we're going to do for about six or seven 22 employees, which is college credit for two different classes. 23 It's going to be about $700 per employee for two classes. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. So we need to do something 25 with -- 7-20-10 bwk 71 1 MS. WILLIAMS: 485? Or do we need to put a new 2 line item in there? 3 MS. HARGIS: No. 4 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Employee training? 6 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, employee training needs to go up 7 to about -- 'cause we have to have books. It needs to be 8 about 900, I think. 9 MS. HYDE: 1,000. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: We'll plug in 1,000 there. 11 MS. HYDE: 1,000, sir. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What are you talking about? 14 Is it mandated by the State? 15 MS. HARGIS: It's -- it's training that they need 16 to -- accounting and business management training that we're 17 going to get them, that you can't get from just a course. 18 You have to -- you need the full package from a -- from an 19 institution, from a college to be able to understand. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I said all those nice things 21 about you. Now I want you to answer my question. 22 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is it mandated by the State? 24 MS. HARGIS: No, it's not mandated by the State. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. The nice is over for 7-20-10 bwk 72 1 the day. 2 MS. HARGIS: I know. I figured. Sorry. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Juvenile Probation. 4 MR. DAVIS: Afternoon, Judge, Commissioners. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: It's 570. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 570? Okay. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. A number of items that I have 8 cut. The -- probably the most significant one is alternate 9 housing went from 467,000 to 325,000. 10 MR. DAVIS: Yes, sir. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: And then there are some others that 12 I reduced. Are those something that are workable for you? 13 MR. DAVIS: Yes, sir. All of the numbers, by the 14 recommendations, look -- barring any unforeseen 15 circumstances, are pretty reasonable. Very reasonable. Very 16 workable. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, I've always been kind 18 of curious about the alternate housing thing. Now, is 19 that -- is that -- and I know we've discussed this 100 times, 20 but is that different kinds of treatment? Different kinds of 21 treatment facilities that we don't offer here? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: No, it's both. It's what we offer 23 here for pre-adjudication detention, and it is 24 post-adjudication placement in places like Hays County, 25 Rockwall, Gulf Coast Trades, some of the type facilities 7-20-10 bwk 73 1 where they have full-time programs where we send some 2 children. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Like boot camp or something 4 like that? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Some of 6 them are -- are substance abuse treatment. Some are sex 7 offender treatment. Just depends upon whatever the needs of 8 that particular child are. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, thank you. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: But it's really both. There's some 11 state money that comes in that -- that they exhaust first to 12 the extent that they can, and then we supplement the balance 13 of it. But that's a pretty big number, as you can see. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: And it's down. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's a pretty big drop 17 there. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Yep, over 140,000. Things spiked in 19 2009 for some unknown reason. It just went off the charts in 20 2009, so we budgeted based on that, and it's -- those numbers 21 have softened up some. So, that's why the adjustment. 22 Anything else, Mr. Davis? 23 MR. DAVIS: No, sir. Not unless -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Any questions -- 25 MR. DAVIS: -- anyone has any questions. 7-20-10 bwk 74 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, thank you. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Thank you. 3 MR. DAVIS: Thank you. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Environmental Health. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 86. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which page? 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 86. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: What -- what account number is that? 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 640. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 640. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You gave them almost everything 12 they wanted. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Hmm? 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, you were nice to Ray, 15 weren't you? 16 MR. GARCIA: Oh, you need to look at Line Item 331. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Let's see what we started with. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 331? 19 MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir, look at 331. We need to 20 adjust that, because that would basically cease operations 21 for me in the field there. Went from -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, come on, Ray. 23 MR. GARCIA: Went from 14,5 to 1,300. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, no, I show 13,000. 25 MR. GARCIA: Okay. Well -- 7-20-10 bwk 75 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You'll take the other? 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Use up some of that from 3 Juvenile Probation. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See how good a manager you 5 are? 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I had 13,000 written down, and -- 7 and apparently I put in 1,300. Got your attention, didn't 8 it? 9 MR. GARCIA: Yes, sir, sure did. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else there in the way of 11 adjustment? I didn't make many more than that. 12 MR. GARCIA: Everything else is fine. Everything 13 else fits. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 15 MR. GARCIA: I do have one request, for the records 16 management. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Now, is this something -- be 18 something in your budget? Or -- 19 MR. GARCIA: No, this is out of Line Item 28 -- 20 28-635-411 for the county records management. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. That was out of one of the 22 budgets that Jannett was -- 23 MS. PIEPER: That's the county-wide records 24 management that he's talking about. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 7-20-10 bwk 76 1 MR. GARCIA: And the estimate from Image Tek is in 2 that in a memo to y'all. I'm sorry, Bruce. Did you not have 3 one? Here you go, sir. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Thank you. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: This comes out of 6 Ms. Pieper's records management account? 7 JUDGE TINLEY: She just said it's not hers. She's 8 just kind of the one the rides herd on it. 9 MS. PIEPER: We have a county-wide records 10 management. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay, that's what I'm 12 talking about. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: That's a separate fund. 14 MS. PIEPER: Yes. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: What's the balance in that fund now? 16 MS. HARGIS: 90,000. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How much? 18 MS. HARGIS: 90,000. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess we can handle that. 20 MS. UECKER: That's the one that I use for my major 21 portion of my records management, but I don't use that much. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where are we, Linda, between 23 your department and Jannett's, to getting everything on 24 microfiche? How much is this -- is that all -- the project 25 that's been going on for years, is that pretty much -- 7-20-10 bwk 77 1 MS. UECKER: Mine's been done. I'm just new -- I'm 2 in the process now of the -- what I'm doing is the current, 3 keeping up with the current. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Keeping up. Are we pretty 5 much -- 6 MS. PIEPER: The project that I have -- that I've 7 done, that I've started last year, was having everything 8 imaged on the computer. All the -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Old stuff? 10 MS. PIEPER: -- old stuff. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And that's done? Or -- 12 MS. PIEPER: No. No, it's -- it'll still be going 13 on probably for another year. We have -- we have this year's 14 payment that we pay, and then the budget that we're working 15 on now, it will be the second payment, and then next year 16 will be our final payment. But they're working on everything 17 right now. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right. What fund is that 19 coming out of? This one, or your -- or that other one? 20 MS. PIEPER: The other one. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The other one? So, what I'm 22 basically -- 23 MS. PIEPER: Mine is a dedicated fund just for my 24 office. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 7-20-10 bwk 78 1 JUDGE TINLEY: For preservation. 2 MS. PIEPER: Yes. For the fund that he does, in my 3 criminal cases there's $25, and 22.50 of that $25 gets put 4 into the county-wide -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Fund. 6 MS. PIEPER: And that's the money that he's using. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So -- but there's no -- we've 8 done a pretty good job, or y'all have done a good job in 9 getting that work pretty much caught up on getting the county 10 records scanned and imaged and all stuff like that? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, not all of it. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Now you want some money? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm just saying, as far as 14 county records -- and I'm not aware of that. I'm not asking 15 for it for this year, but, you know, we've still got well 16 over 100 file cabinets. We're scanning in all the current 17 stuff as we go on, okay? But all our old stuff, you know, 18 offense records, those type records that have to be kept, 19 I've probably got the equivalent of 40 or 50 file cabinets. 20 Jail records, I've probably got 100 file cabinets full. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the -- what is the -- I 22 guess the usage of that old stuff, Rusty? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Jail records is just about 24 every day. You know, unfortunately, about 90 percent of 25 our -- our guests are repeat offenders, and you have to use 7-20-10 bwk 79 1 all their priors when you classify them and everything else, 2 so that's constant. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But you use that in-house to 4 keep track of it? 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. We do that any time 6 anybody comes -- an inmate comes to jail; the old record gets 7 pulled. They get combined, and it will gradually -- you 8 know, scanning all that in, but we have to have all those old 9 records. It also is what holds the original fingerprint. 10 It's also what holds original fingerprint cards and that. 11 And then, you know, unfortunately, a lot of times on the 12 Sheriff's Office side, you get a whole lot of cases that 13 aren't solved, and you keep all those records. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm just trying to get an idea 15 as to where we're going in the future on trying to -- 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They've done a fabulous job, 17 from what I've always heard, over here at the courthouse. 18 But at some point, we're going to have to start doing it at 19 the Sheriff's Office. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 21 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 22 MR. TROLINGER: I think what's going on with this 23 $90,000 that you're looking at now is that Environmental 24 Health can pretty easily, you know, use this without 25 impacting any other offices right now, so far as I see. What 7-20-10 bwk 80 1 the Sheriff's talking about is he does back scanning, and 2 that's in-house. We're not going to -- we're not going to 3 farm that out to Image Tek, probably. That's something we'll 4 do in-house. We're putting that into Odyssey in his criminal 5 records and whatnot. These kind of records, we can ship 6 these out to Waco and they can scan them in, and -- and then 7 they'll send it back to us as an electronic record. And 8 that's pretty easy to do with Environmental Health. Makes 9 sense to do it that way. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis, on this county records 11 management, this 28-635, you said there's a balance of 12 approximately $90,000? 13 (Ms. Hargis nodded.) 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Pieper, are you planning on 15 doing -- asking for anything out of that particular -- 16 MS. PIEPER: No, sir. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: -- budget this year? 18 MS. PIEPER: No, sir. 19 MS. HARGIS: Linda said she was. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Uecker, are you planning on 21 trying to do anything out of that particular budget this 22 year? 23 MS. UECKER: Yes, sir. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: And what amount? 25 MS. UECKER: I think it was 37. 7-20-10 bwk 81 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Still, that works. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. How -- by what amount does 3 that fund increase annually, or has it been increasing? 4 MS. HARGIS: I think it gets about 37,000 a year; 5 37 is about the annual contribution, so I think what she was 6 using is what will come in, so cash balance will go down. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: To about 60 at the end of the year, 8 after we take out the 30 that he's asking for. Okay. 9 MS. UECKER: And there's a total of five separate 10 records preservation accounts that we should be keeping up 11 with separately. 12 MS. HARGIS: We do. 13 MS. UECKER: Okay. 14 MS. HARGIS: The only two -- there's only three of 15 them, though, that have money in them. Some of the new ones 16 that we have set up have no money in them at all. 17 MS. UECKER: Two of them are from the last 18 Legislature, so they're not going to have much in them at 19 all. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: I think there's one that Jannett has 21 solely for herself, you've got one solely for yourself, and 22 then there's this one that we're talking about now. 23 MS. UECKER: Right. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Which is the county-wide -- 25 MS. UECKER: That's the one that gets the most 7-20-10 bwk 82 1 money in it. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 MS. UECKER: The one that I'm using for my -- 4 that's just for mine, it doesn't have a whole lot of money, 5 but that's what I use every year to preserve those pre-1900 6 original handwritten documents. I do some of those every 7 year, about $5,000 worth, so those can be maintained forever. 8 They're very brittle. But that's what I use that for. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Anybody on the Court have a problem 10 with the request from Mr. Garcia as to his -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Absolutely not. None 12 whatsoever. Need to do some other departments. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. You plug that into the 14 records management. Okay. Anything else, Mr. Garcia? 15 MR. GARCIA: I'm sorry. Did we fix that 331, 16 Judge? 17 MS. HARGIS: Yes, we sure did. Or I did. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We put it to 13,000. 19 MR. GARCIA: All right. No, sir, that's all. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just slightly under what you 21 asked for. 22 MR. GARCIA: That'll work. All right. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Now we go to 408, I.T. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is it? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: 408. Mr. Trolinger, I got several 7-20-10 bwk 83 1 questions. Number one, I think we just found one software 2 maintenance that Road and Bridge have that needs to be moved 3 over. 4 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you fairly well satisfied that 6 you've ferreted out all of those software maintenances that 7 need to come over to you and be included in your budget? 8 MR. TROLINGER: The ones that need to, yes. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Well, I understand there are 10 a few that still are maintained with -- with certain offices, 11 but the lion's share of them are coming to you, right? 12 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir, so we can see it all in 13 one place. That's the object. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. And are you comfortable as to 15 those that should be coming to you? You've pretty well got 16 them plugged in here? 17 MR. TROLINGER: Let me look. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: 132,6? 19 MR. TROLINGER: Negative. It's 136,662, with the 20 -- including the Road and Bridge. 21 MS. MABRY: Actually, it's not including Road and 22 Bridge. I had put it in the training line item instead of 23 the maintenance, so I had to remove it, and I'll be putting 24 it right there, so it's going to be 2,100 more. 25 MS. HARGIS: Just put it in now. 7-20-10 bwk 84 1 MR. TROLINGER: 138,800. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Just the one figure, 2,100 or 3 whatever? 4 MS. MABRY: It will be 138,762. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: What did you say that was, 138? 6 MS. MABRY: 138,762. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Your telephone line item, 8 explain that to me. 9 MR. TROLINGER: Okay, I'll break it down for you. 10 It's three I.T. cell phones at $18 each per month. There are 11 internet services for the courthouse. And I say the 12 courthouse, but it really applies to the outlying offices 13 now. We've put them on the computer network, except for the 14 Sheriff's Office and Ingram. We've got -- we've got those 15 rolled up in that service. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MR. TROLINGER: I do have a change to that line 18 item. We've -- we've taken -- from Nondepartmental, we've 19 taken the internet service from Time-Warner Cable and we've 20 taken a $500 access fee, which I'm going to find out exactly 21 what that is, and I expect that to go away, but I'm tentative 22 on that. And there's a request that I've added for another 23 internet service from Hill Country Telecommunications, and 24 that'll give us two internet service providers. Our internet 25 service is critical now; we can't do anything in some offices 7-20-10 bwk 85 1 without it, and we need a second -- 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Because of the VOIP? 3 MR. TROLINGER: Well, no, not because of the 4 phones, but it could get there. You know, with some of the 5 offices, we might have that as backup. In other words, if 6 our line's cut in one place, we might be able to use the 7 internet service, if that was still up, for the other. But 8 this is -- this is strictly data internet service, and that 9 does connect us to a few offices. I budgeted that last year, 10 thinking we'd go ahead and start the process, but with Hill 11 Country Telecommunications coming in and putting the fiber in 12 and having this service ready so fast, I could call them and 13 turn the service on in no time at all, and I'm in a real 14 comfortable position with having that backup available right 15 now. But I do see next year we need to -- we need to have 16 both of them turned on and start transitioning in, so that's 17 the increase, and the total right now is $9,708 for the 18 telephone line item for all those things. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. About 900-something for that 20 redundancy in the internet service? 21 MR. TROLINGER: And the nondepartmental that -- 22 that came over. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Contract services. Explain 24 that one to me. 25 MR. TROLINGER: Well, we've got a couple of -- I 7-20-10 bwk 86 1 won't call them obligations, but commitments -- how's that? 2 One of them to the City, that we'll provide -- we'll contract 3 with someone to maintain equipment that's on their water 4 tower for part of our network, and a couple other possible 5 contracts that we might have to activate if we ran into 6 trouble with -- with old hardware. So, as a contingency, I 7 budget for those. And it's not really a contingency, because 8 we're not obligated, but, you know, I made that commitment -- 9 that verbal commitment to those. So you see it go unused 10 each year, and -- and I hope y'all don't see this as a, you 11 know, use it or lose it, because that's not my philosophy. 12 We budget for it, and if we need to, we'll spend it, but 13 otherwise we're not going to spend it. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: You haven't spent anything yet this 15 year, and I think that's what prompted my question. Is there 16 a good reason for it to be in there? 17 MR. TROLINGER: Yes. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: What are the circumstances that it 19 might be necessary to pull the trigger on that? 20 MR. TROLINGER: We've got a -- if the City of 21 Kerrville says we've got to establish that contract, to have 22 a climber for the water tower. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: But that's a -- I'm going to call it 24 a repeater, for lack of a better term. 25 MR. TROLINGER: Yes. 7-20-10 bwk 87 1 JUDGE TINLEY: That's what we're using for our 2 internet communications to our outlying offices? 3 MR. TROLINGER: It connects many offices, yes. 4 Several offices. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Okay. So they're not 6 interested in fixing it if it needs fixing, are they? 7 MR. TROLINGER: They did a really good job for us 8 during the power outage. There was a power outage as a 9 result of a storm, and we got -- we got that restored pretty 10 quickly. So, I think it's in their interest to restore power 11 and whatnot, but to actually get up there where the 12 equipment's at, that is ours, definitely ours. The other 13 example would be we've got some older equipment, servers that 14 are five years plus now. I'll let the contract lapse on 15 those, but if I call up and say, "Hey, I've got a really bad 16 problem. Can you help me with it?" We might be required to 17 establish a contract for service to get that. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Maintenance service? 19 MR. TROLINGER: Right. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, okay. 21 MR. TROLINGER: Instead of just, you know, paying 22 out this -- these contract dollars every year. I don't see 23 you need do it that way, and we can kind of do it on demand. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Do you think you can handle most of 25 the problems that come up with servers and the other 7-20-10 bwk 88 1 equipment, and only on rare occasions will it be necessary to 2 go outside? 3 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. I like fixing it. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 5 MR. TROLINGER: We like to do that in-house. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we like you to fix it; it will 7 save us money. Anything else? 8 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. On -- back on a couple 9 of the telephone budgets, I thought we might end up bumping 10 into that on the Sheriff's Office and the Road and Bridge. I 11 just wanted to make y'all aware -- I don't want to back up to 12 those budgets, but with the new telephone system, Animal 13 Control, for example, will come over as soon as we can move 14 the phone numbers over. They do have phones in place. But 15 Road and Bridge and the Sheriff's Office, both are on my 16 radar screen. The Sheriff's Office is about $1,900 a month, 17 and Road and Bridge is about $3,200 a month, as well as 18 Extension Office. But, you know, as much as I like the 19 Sheriff, and I -- I support him, we've got the best -- we've 20 got the best position we can be in I.T. wise over at the 21 Sheriff's Office. You know, he -- I couldn't ask for 22 anything more. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You know he's right behind you. 24 MR. TROLINGER: And I support him. And I support 25 him on this Line Item Number 1 that he's asking about, 'cause 7-20-10 bwk 89 1 I really think he does a great job of managing that whole 2 operation. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Get to the point, John. 4 MR. TROLINGER: But if he wants to find a place for 5 that -- that Line 1 item, that Line 1 to be increased, I 6 think we can reduce the phone budget by about $1,100 a month. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a shoe that's 8 dropped. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: I think we found you a partner, 10 Sheriff. 11 MR. TROLINGER: And I'd also like to say Road and 12 Bridge -- Road and Bridge just does great work. They've 13 helped us put in that microwave equipment to get the other 14 offices online, and, you know, I know it's really tough 15 moving the phones over. It's a lot of work, and it's 16 stressful. But, you know, we'll do it in-house, and -- and 17 we'll do it right. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, part of what you're talking 19 about in the Sheriff's Office, Road and Bridge, those are 20 separate equipment contracts that we've got outstanding. 21 That's what you're referring to, isn't it? 22 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. And the -- I think they were 24 put on, what, a five-year when they were initially put into 25 place, each of them? 7-20-10 bwk 90 1 MR. TROLINGER: I think so. We have not explored 2 those contracts, but we do know that there's a recurring cost 3 of these equipment leases of these key systems. In this day 4 and age, it's just not something we need to do. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I understand. We've had that 6 discussion. 7 MR. TROLINGER: Additionally, with the -- with the 8 annex coming online, and the 216th Adult Probation, by 9 purchasing one -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Who? 11 MR. TROLINGER: The 216th Adult Probation office. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: You mean Kerr County Adult 13 Probation. 14 MR. TROLINGER: Kerr County Adult Probation, excuse 15 me, sir. With their phone lines coming over, it would be 16 ideal and make the most sense to have a PRI, the primary rate 17 interface line at the Sheriff's Office that would serve both 18 of those entities, and that's where that cost savings will 19 come in. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think -- and I'd have to go 21 back, and we can pull it and look. I've got a feeling, just 22 guessing, we're probably still 18 months to two years in that 23 contract. You may know, Judge, in the current one. I'd have 24 to look. I have a copy of it at the office. I understand 25 that after that contract is over, and -- and it may be best 7-20-10 bwk 91 1 before that contract is over. I understand we're going to 2 end up on that phone system. I don't have a problem, you 3 know. It will save the County some money. The only issues I 4 have with it is I would like to see, if it's going to be 5 installed, even if we end up paying -- or having to have two 6 phones on the desk out there, that we have that so that we 7 don't have any type of interruptions in our service until 8 we're ready to -- 9 MR. TROLINGER: We'll definitely do that. That's 10 how we'll do it. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And then my only other big 12 issue is, I think we're going to have to have some workshops 13 or some meetings with 911, with my recording equipment that 14 we have for all our -- all of our radio traffic goes through 15 the phones; everything like that is all recorded. The 911 16 equipment is digital. I think Mr. Amerine may have some 17 objections and that that we're going to have to work out, 18 okay? Because otherwise, we'll have to have a separate 19 contract if we can't get those worked out for the dispatch 20 center to be able to keep the 911 and the required recording 21 equipment going in dispatch. 22 MR. TROLINGER: We've met with 911, and we're all 23 on board with the voice-over IP. We understand the 24 challenges in setting that up, but we'll figure it out. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's my biggest issues. You 7-20-10 bwk 92 1 know, and it may be better to start six, eight months before 2 our contract -- our current contract's over -- 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It would be. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- so that we can have it all 5 working, even if we're using two phones for a little while 6 until everything's settled. 'Cause going down out there 7 would be major for all of us. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That would be the preferred 9 route. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Thank you. That's the only 11 thing I would ask. 12 MR. TROLINGER: Definitely, there will be 13 redundancy at the Sheriff's Office. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: We don't want any interruption in 15 service for emergency services, obviously. But, 16 Mr. Trolinger, if you would get those contracts, or maybe the 17 clerk has the contracts for these outlying entities. There's 18 another possibility, and that would be negotiating a buy-out 19 with -- with the other party to this contract. 20 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: We might be -- we might be money 22 ahead to do that. You know, we would have to be assured that 23 -- you know, that there's no interruption of service where we 24 satisfy the 911 requirements, we satisfy the requirement that 25 we always have that service. We can't let that get in the 7-20-10 bwk 93 1 way. But I think there is another option of a possible 2 buy-out of those contracts, so that -- you know, we've got 3 the new building coming on, and that has an interface with 4 all of this. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, my boss lady back here 6 is telling me that we may just have a year left on this 7 contract. She's not sure, so somebody probably ought to pull 8 it pretty quick and look at it. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: I suspect she probably knows, Rusty. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You noticed I said my "boss 11 lady." 12 MR. TROLINGER: We've gone down the contract road. 13 I'm not satisfied with the information, so I'm not ready to 14 bring it to you. But the Sheriff's Office does have the 15 longest, as far as we know, time left on the lease. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MR. TROLINGER: Than the rest of the other ones. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Take a look at them. You may want 19 to give some thought to that. 20 MR. TROLINGER: One other change, and that's in 21 Line Item 525, which is training. Software training, 22 specifically. We've had good success. The Compliance office 23 has taken advantage of the programs, and will do that again, 24 so this year it will be about 11 -- just like the projection 25 shows, $11,700. And next year, I think we should lower that 7-20-10 bwk 94 1 down to about 8,750. 8,750. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: It shows 10,850 now. 3 MR. TROLINGER: I've just recently made this 4 adjustment. We just got an invoice in, and looking at the 5 numbers, I've made the adjustment with Tess. She's driving 6 the boat here on -- on the A.R. right now. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Is 10,850 where it needs to be? 8 MR. TROLINGER: No, 8,750. 8,750. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 10 MR. TROLINGER: And if the situation comes up, if 11 an individual department or whatnot, you know, needs the 12 additional training, then we'll cross that path when we get 13 to it. But the -- the intent of this was not to have an 14 ongoing software training, but as Odyssey evolves and, you 15 know, some of these updates, we get massive numbers of 16 changes and additional features, and we want to do it 17 in-house. We want to say, "Okay, there's a new thing there." 18 But we need the experts to come in once in a while and show 19 us these new things and set them up, do the initial setup for 20 us, so that's what the money's really intended to do. And I 21 think we can back down on it a little bit this year. The 22 updates this coming year are mostly legislative, 23 unfortunately, and it's built into our software maintenance 24 contract. They're funding that through -- through video 25 teleconference and conference call. 7-20-10 bwk 95 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else? 2 MR. TROLINGER: No, sir. 3 MS. PIEPER: Are you going to go down here for the 4 O.C.A. -- 5 MR. TROLINGER: It will be per load. 6 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 7 MR. TROLINGER: There's a lot going on, and there's 8 a whole process of reporting to the state, to the Office of 9 Court Administration, that's going to change in September. 10 And I'm satisfied with the plan. 11 MS. PIEPER: Okay. 12 MR. TROLINGER: I talked to, you know, the guy 13 that's implementing it, that Tyler Technologies. Sounds like 14 he's got it together. 15 MS. PIEPER: Okay. 16 MR. TROLINGER: Thank you, sir. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that it? Okay. Let's go to 18 Extension Office. 10-665. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which page? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 95. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: I was very kind to you, wasn't I, 22 Roy? 23 MR. WALSTON: You were. Of course, we didn't ask 24 for a whole lot, either. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Can you ask for less? 7-20-10 bwk 96 1 MR. WALSTON: No. (Laughter.) 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Walked into that one, didn't you? 3 MR. WALSTON: Yeah. I ought to learn to keep my 4 mouth shut sometimes. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: No questions? No additions. Not 6 willing to give up anything else? 7 MR. WALSTON: We do have the new secretary that 8 will be filling that vacant position; hopefully be starting 9 -- hopefully by Monday, but by the 1st if nothing else -- if 10 everything goes right. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: The other issue you're going to 12 bring to the Court is a capital item? 13 MR. WALSTON: Yes, sir. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. I think that's probably the 15 way to do that. 16 MR. WALSTON: Okay. Would you like that now? 17 JUDGE TINLEY: No, we can't do it now. 18 MR. WALSTON: Okay. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Monday. 20 MR. WALSTON: Thanks. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okey-doke. Okay, 660. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Hmm? 23 JUDGE TINLEY: 10-660. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There it is. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis? 7-20-10 bwk 97 1 MS. HARGIS: County-sponsored. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: On Emergency Management, I assume 3 that was something that came to you that -- 4 MS. HARGIS: Yes, it did. They brought us the 5 budget. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Confidential information, 7 or -- 8 MS. HARGIS: The City billed it as part of those 9 four little line items, remember, that I was handed. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 11 MS. HARGIS: That comes from the City. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Under public transportation, 13 Commissioner Williams, you've been working that through the 14 AACOG arrangement. I notice that, at least as to what I'm 15 looking at, 4,000 that we budgeted for this current year has 16 not been expended. Does that need to come off? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, hold up and I'll 18 confirm that tomorrow. I'll be up there. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll let you know. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Same question, R.C.& D.? I 22 haven't even heard those words in years. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We haven't contributed to 24 R.C.& D., to my knowledge. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 7-20-10 bwk 98 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In some time. They'd 2 like to have a contribution. But what did we spend out of 3 R.C.& D. actual this year? That's not being confused with 4 that grant that they gave us, is it? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll bet it is, 'cause normally 6 R.C.& D. is 1,500. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They gave us a grant for, I 8 think, 14,000, or maybe 15,000. 9 MS. HARGIS: For the sewer? For the sewer 10 connections? 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Pardon me? 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 13 MS. HARGIS: Yes. For the sewer connections, yes. 14 That was in a different line item. No, this is not in here. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We've not made a 16 contribution to them. I don't know where that actual 230.01 17 comes from. 18 MS. HARGIS: I'll have to check it. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And I wouldn't recommend 20 3,378 either. 21 MS. HARGIS: Okay, good. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Unless somebody else wants 23 to do it. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, I don't. I just -- I 25 haven't even heard those words, "R.C.& D.," in several years. 7-20-10 bwk 99 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, the last time I 2 mentioned them was to tell the Court that we'd gotten a grant 3 from them for 14,000 for some septic remediation, which we 4 used. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does anyone ever come -- 6 come and say, "Hey, we need to prop up this program"? Or -- 7 JUDGE TINLEY: I know what I'm thinking about. I 8 got it confused with the third one up there, the Soil 9 Conservation Service. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the 1,500. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 1,500 instead of 15,000. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that would be 1,500, 14 Soil Conservation. 15 MS. HARGIS: I think these are the dues, actually, 16 that we put -- that's for AACOG dues. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I'm seeing zero, Alamo 18 R.C.& D. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 20 MS. HARGIS: Is that what it is, is the dues? 21 MS. MABRY: I believe so, because I remember we 22 made a change to that line item last year. It was AACOG, and 23 it was changed to Alamo R.C.& D. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm sorry, I can't hear 25 you. 7-20-10 bwk 100 1 MS. MABRY: That line item, we actually had it 2 labeled as AACOG, and it was changed to Alamo R.C.& D. during 3 the year. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, there are AACOG dues, 5 right? 6 MS. MABRY: I think that's actually where that 7 number is coming from, is the dues, because when we got that 8 grant, at that time, that's when we changed it to Alamo 9 R.C.& D. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, that number, 3,378 -- 11 MS. HARGIS: That's our dues. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- is nearer comporting to 13 AACOG dues structure than anything else. 14 MS. MABRY: So I can relabel that as AACOG? 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So let's relabel it. That 16 would be fine. That would be good. 17 MS. HARGIS: And we have a letter from them stating 18 that our dues for 2011 are 3,377.22. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There you go. Okay. 20 MS. HARGIS: That's where the number comes from. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Very good. And I'll 22 check -- Judge, I'll check on the transportation. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Some of those entities that we 24 have money -- 25 MS. HARGIS: Some of them haven't asked for them. 7-20-10 bwk 101 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. Now, CASA we had in 2 here last year, but -- but they haven't asked. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think they -- 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For what? 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: CASA. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I thought they sent us a letter 7 and requested to be included again. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, they did. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They did. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: May not have requested their 11 money, but they requested to be budgeted. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, they did. As did 13 K'Star and -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 15 MS. HARGIS: I just put these in based on last 16 year. And -- and this is at the Court's discretion. These 17 are -- I don't get the letters y'all get. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Crisis Council? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that a new one? Or new -- 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where'd that one come from? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And also Kids Advocacy Place, 22 looks like is new for this list. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is Crisis Council a new 24 request this year? 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Didn't show anything from the 7-20-10 bwk 102 1 previous year. 2 MS. GRINSTEAD: I believe the only letter we've 3 received this year in our office is from K'Star. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: K'Star. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: And CASA. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: CASA. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Got one from CASA too. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I got one from CASA. 9 MS. HARGIS: You want to take the Crisis Council 10 out? Y'all tell me which ones you wants me to remove. The 11 only number I know is a good number is the KCAD contract. 12 That one is -- is the new amount for next year. That one 13 is -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what they requested, 15 right? 16 MS. HARGIS: Yes, it is. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 'Cause we haven't acted on it 18 yet. 19 MS. HARGIS: No, you have not. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On a lot of those, like CASA, 21 Crisis Council, Kids Advocacy, it was -- I thought we had 22 come to a policy, written or unwritten, that if they're not 23 providing, basically, services through the County Judge's 24 position, we don't fund them. Because we had to draw a line 25 somewhere, and that was the criteria, to either fund them all 7-20-10 bwk 103 1 or just those that he utilizes. That's where we've been. 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What would be the 3 explanation of Kids Advocacy Place? That comes through the 4 juvenile judge? 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Literacy. If I recall correctly, 6 they provide literacy services. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They're really a good 8 organization. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't have a problem with any 10 of them. If they meet the criteria, they meet the criteria. 11 Otherwise, I think we will open up the floodgates. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, definitely. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, in looking at -- at Crisis 14 Council and Kids Advocacy Place, for example, I -- we're 15 going to have to take a closer look at this, Ms. Grinstead. 16 I may have the Advocacy Place and Families and Literacy -- I 17 may have them confused, maybe. On the Kids Advocacy Place, 18 it says formal request received May 17th. Commissioner 19 Baldwin, are you good with 4,500 for the Historical 20 Commission? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do have a question, 24 though. And y'all don't -- I don't want to see any gnashing 25 of teeth here, but I just have a question. 7-20-10 bwk 104 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: About economic development. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: At some point, are we going 5 to have them -- maybe not this year; I understand they're 6 awful busy, but at some point come in here and tell us what 7 we're getting for our money? Other than a luncheon and a 8 trip to Washington. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't think you get the trip 10 to Washington, but you get -- 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, I don't. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But a slight few do. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: On the 29th, you've already received 15 an invite for that. I would encourage you to be there. 16 Unfortunately, I won't be able to be there. This is an 17 entirely new E.D. organization that's being rolled out, and 18 it includes all the stakeholders that -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand. I'm glad 20 they're doing that. I will not be in town either, but Bill 21 will take notes for us. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll eat your lunch. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And eat my lunch, as usual. 24 But, you know, I want to hear -- I want to hear him say we 25 have invited "X" amount of companies to Kerrville, and two of 7-20-10 bwk 105 1 them have been established. And, you know, I want to -- and 2 housing is growing a little bit, you know, those issues. 3 Those issues that we never hear about, or at least I don't 4 hear about. I think that this Court and the general public 5 needs to hear those things. I mean, just we need a response 6 from them for $25,000. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: I think Mr. Overby has regularly 8 reported to us, at least -- at least annually, maybe 9 semiannually; I'm not sure, with the exception of just 10 recently while we've been undergoing this reorganization. 11 And one of the requirements of the -- of the new organization 12 would be reports to the stakeholders. And -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's cool. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: -- that's part of it. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's good. That's 16 fantastic. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, on the trapper 18 contract -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. On the Jon Letz trapper 20 contract. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Hey, there's some in the west 22 end too. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Not much. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- is that amount the 25 agreement we have with Kendall County? I'm not sure Kendall 7-20-10 bwk 106 1 County ever bills us for it, which is fine if they don't want 2 to bill us for it, but I think we should budget for it, 3 'cause we're supposed to be splitting one trapper. We pay, I 4 think, 5,000 of his salary to free up the Kerr County trapper 5 to primarily stay in the western two-thirds of the county. 6 And my memory is -- isn't it 5,000, Jody? 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think it's 5,000. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's 5,000. Anyway, we 9 need to make sure that's in that line item. And by the note 10 last year -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Went from 26 to 31. 12 26,423.14 in '08 and '09. 13 MS. HARGIS: Well, no, the 20 -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In 2010, it went to 31,4; 15 that would be your 5,000. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I looked at the note, and 17 it doesn't -- I just want to make sure that it's -- you know, 18 I think it's included in it, but we need to make sure. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, who put in the 31,4? 20 Was that for this year? 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That was last year's request. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: When did we make the adjustment with 23 that Kendall County sharing? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it was, like, three 25 years ago. 7-20-10 bwk 107 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Three or four. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Should be in there, then. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think it's in there. I 4 just want to make sure. I don't know that they've ever 5 requested it, or I don't know how -- if it just gets rolled 6 into our payments to them, or how all that works, but we 7 might want to check that. 8 MS. HARGIS: I'd have to look at the invoice. I do 9 have in front of me K'Star's request. It is for 5,000. It 10 was dated in April. Alamo R.C.& D. did request money. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How much? 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What did they request? 13 MS. HARGIS: A $1,000 donation. We request that 14 you include a donation of 1,000 in the 2011 fiscal budget in 15 lieu of annual membership donation. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: In lieu of annual membership 17 donation? 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, she's talking about 19 R.C.& D. now. 20 MS. HARGIS: R.C.& D. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not AACOG. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If the Court wants to go 24 that way, that's fine. R.C.& D., but not -- AACOG is dues. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Is AACOG dues under Nondepartmental, 7-20-10 bwk 108 1 maybe? 2 MS. HARGIS: No, they were right here. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think the header just got 5 changed, though. 6 MS. HARGIS: We changed it last year to R.C.& D., 7 and I don't remember why, but that's where the AACOG was 8 prior to that. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And that number is an AACOG 10 number? 11 MS. MABRY: Yes. 12 MS. HARGIS: Yes. But I can check, Judge, just to 13 be sure that we can take those dues from your -- from 402 14 from y'all's budget. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, from -- going back to 16 the Alamo R.C.& D., I just don't see them as much of an 17 organization for Kerr County any more. I mean, they moved 18 their new office -- well, it was 10 years ago, but they moved 19 it to Helotes, I think. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, they're in Boerne now. 21 They're getting closer to you. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They're going to move in with 23 you shortly. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They're in Boerne, but 25 there's no Kerr County representation any more, not like 7-20-10 bwk 109 1 there used to be years ago. Not there. In terms of decision 2 making, it's all south. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think we need to fund 4 it. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't either. 6 MS. HARGIS: Do you want to read the letter? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You remember what they did. 9 They were selling these standpipes for ranchers to put on 10 their ponds. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Dry hydrants. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Dry hydrants, excuse me. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: For some reason, it just 14 never caught on. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I got one -- 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I can show you where there's 17 one. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I got one on Fall Creek 19 Road; just went out there. One of them on Fall Creek. They 20 don't work too well when the pond's dry. 21 MS. HARGIS: Then we have another request from Hill 22 Country CARES for 5,000. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: For 5,000. Effectively, the Crisis 24 Council. 25 MS. HARGIS: And then the Kids Advocacy Place, 7-20-10 bwk 110 1 2,000. So, there's two actual -- two requests in the one 2 letter, so the Crisis Council requests 5,000. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm. 4 MS. HARGIS: And then Kids Care, 2,000. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 6 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Was there a formal request 7 from Crisis Council? 8 MS. HARGIS: Yes, right here. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have K'Star and CASA? 11 MS. HARGIS: Yes -- no, I do not have CASA. 12 MS. GRINSTEAD: I don't have a CASA request. 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Bruce, I've seen CASA's -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I had one from CASA too. I 15 just thought it was for 1,000. I didn't know it was for two. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This says 1,000. 17 MS. HARGIS: 1,000 is what we have in here. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what they requested. 19 I remember. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm. 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. I'll get back to you 23 on public transportation. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What about the 216th task 7-20-10 bwk 111 1 force? Where'd Clay go? 2 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 3 MS. HARGIS: Do we leave these? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. Let's -- we'll come back and 5 revisit that as necessary. Okay, Court Compliance. 6 MS. LYLE: Good afternoon. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: That's 429. 8 MS. LYLE: Yes. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Page 26. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What page? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 26. 12 MS. LYLE: The only thing I wanted to bring to your 13 attention is Line Items 309 and 310 were both omitted on the 14 budget. I'm not sure why or what happened, but they have 15 just been plugged in. Postage is going to be $2,400. Office 16 supplies, $2,000. And also, Line Item 420 for the telephone, 17 it was my understanding when we switched over to the new 18 telephone service that we would no longer have a bill. That 19 was my misunderstanding. There is still a service charge. I 20 asked for $150 to cover just our monthly expense for two 21 phones. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: And your postage, you're requesting 23 2,400? 24 MS. LYLE: 2,400, yes. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Supplies, 2,000? 7-20-10 bwk 112 1 MS. LYLE: Yes. 2 MS. HARGIS: How many phones do you have, three? 3 MS. LYLE: We have two phones. We have -- we have 4 three lines technically, don't we? Just two lines? 5 MR. TROLINGER: It's the number of handsets, the 6 actual number of physical phones. 7 MS. LYLE: So that'll be two. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Those low numbers appear to be 9 somewhat in line. Okay. 10 MS. LYLE: Okay? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: City/County Operations. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Buster, what was that you 13 said earlier about correcting some mistake on one of the 14 deals where the verbiage was wrong? Was that you, Bill? 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Under County-sponsored, we 16 should take that R.C.& D. out, make that AACOG. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This is supposed to be Court 18 Compliance instead of Court Collections. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It should be -- 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We've got a bunch of 22 City/County joint operations. Let's go to 10-595, airport. 23 We've already covered that, haven't we, Ms. Hargis? 24 MS. HARGIS: We have. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: The airport? 7-20-10 bwk 113 1 MS. HARGIS: We have. Covered that. We did make 2 our changes that you recommended. We forwarded those. 3 There's a little bit of conflict on those, but they'll also 4 be presented to the Airport Board to decide on. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Look at 10-630. 6 MS. HARGIS: Which is? 7 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. It appears your Kendall 9 County EMS contract, that's 3,000. That's a continuing 10 arrangement. Child Services Board, that's performing at a 11 little less than what we budgeted last year. Year-to-date is 12 just a hair over 2,000, which would indicate we could cut 13 that to 3,500 hundred to 4,000. Any thoughts on that? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: My only thought, and I may 15 or may not be correct, but they have ramped up the donations 16 from the community and done different kind of little fund 17 drives for the first time, and I think that's what's coming 18 in the picture. And I don't know -- I haven't been around 19 them in a while, to be honest with you, but I don't know if 20 that's -- if that's a lasting thing or not. I don't know; 21 you'd have to talk to her. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe get a nod of the head. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Am I anywhere near correct? 24 (Ms. Banik shook her head negatively.) 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know the answer to 7-20-10 bwk 114 1 it. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, sorry. We could 4 possibly get Judge Billeiter in here to visit, if you'd like. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, does EMS contract 6 include fire? 7 MS. HARGIS: No. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: No, that's separate. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just for the ambulance? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Fire is 14,661. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This time. If I'm not 12 mistaken -- 13 MS. HARGIS: Fire went up. Remember, we had a 3 14 percent installation, and fire went up to 195. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The EMS is up. Is there -- 16 MS. HARGIS: It was 139,000 last year, and it's up 17 to 258. And Commissioner -- 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Commissioner Baldwin's going to give 19 us a report on that. 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I hope. So, when are we 21 going to meet to discuss rate increases? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When would y'all like to 23 meet -- invite them over to meet with us? 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Have you met with them? 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I met with them. I went 7-20-10 bwk 115 1 over and met with them, met with the City Manager, two fire 2 people, and the finance director over there, and we sat down 3 and had a long visit, and basically they're doing all the 4 same things that they've done the last few years. But what 5 they've -- what they're adding in are things like our share 6 of the secretary's salary, maintenance on the buildings, -- 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- those kind of things that 9 they never have added in before. And it's kind of an 10 interesting conversation. I had a very interesting 11 conversation, and I told them that -- that y'all would be 12 really interested in having them over to visit about it. And 13 -- and the City Manager said he would be delighted to do 14 that. So, just kind of waiting on your -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Why don't you see if they could be 16 at our next Commissioners Court meeting to give us a report? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Would you mind doing that, 18 please? Okay, I've got to do everything around here. When 19 is the next meeting? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Monday. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This coming Monday? And 22 today's Tuesday? 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We have to give 30 days 24 notice on any meetings that we need to have? 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Public hearing? 7-20-10 bwk 116 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's almost a 90 percent 2 increase. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They may have to bring -- I 4 mean, if it took four of them to meet just with you, -- 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, it takes four to meet 6 with them. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- must take about 20 of them 8 to come over here. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's pretty expensive. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Take an ambulance for the 11 trip over. 12 MS. HARGIS: They might. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe we need to bring a sack 14 lunch that day. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That right there is funny. 16 I don't care who you are; that right there is funny. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The EMS contract wasn't part of 18 our long-term arrangement? 19 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was part of it? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 22 MS. HARGIS: It didn't really -- you didn't add any 23 cap or anything like that. Everybody was happy with the way 24 it was. But now that they've added other things in that they 25 hadn't added before, I don't know if we -- I mean, I don't -- 7-20-10 bwk 117 1 to me, you know, you're not being consistent with what you've 2 done in the past, and then you drop all this in, and it's 3 almost a 100 percent increase. And they are a million, eight 4 in the hole. It looks a little bit like they're passing that 5 million, eight off to us. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Has that smell, doesn't it? 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The first year of our 8 three-year funding plan was '08-'09, right? 9 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yes. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It went down that year. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 13 MS. HARGIS: It went down to 139 the last year. 14 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Right. That's my point. 15 MS. HARGIS: And now it's come back up. You know, 16 the year before that, it was closer to 200,000. But they 17 got -- Buster, help me with this. They told Buster they got 18 some kind of refund or something in last year that caused our 19 amount to go back down. There was something -- 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I can't help you with that 21 information. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Part of the reason they went 23 down is because we finally agreed -- they finally agreed to 24 increase some of their rates. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. And that's on the 7-20-10 bwk 118 1 table. That's on the table again this year, along with this 2 number right here. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So -- 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I mean, the rate increase 6 isn't in this number? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: On top of that? 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh, okay. That makes a lot 11 of sense. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Hopefully it will cause revenues to 13 be such that it will be zero next year. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we'll see if they can come 16 visit on Monday. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We'll holler at them today. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, okay. 14-661 is fire. I 19 don't think it's in here. But -- 20 MS. HARGIS: It's in Fund 14. It's 195 again. We 21 got that from the City with that -- the 3 percent escalation, 22 and we did agree to that in that meeting. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: I was thinking it was a flat $5,000 24 per year. 25 MS. HARGIS: Ill have to go back to the 7-20-10 bwk 119 1 spreadsheet. I thought it was 3 percent. I can't remember. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it was 5,000, 'cause it 3 went from -- well, that's been jumping around. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: 180 to -- 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 175, 165, 185. 6 MS. HARGIS: It was -- 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Up to 175 again. 8 MS. HARGIS: Pretty soon we'll buy our own truck. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Buster and I are going to get us a 10 fire department and stand it up. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're going to have -- of 12 course, we're going to be in wheelchairs by the time we get 13 it done. But, Clay, while you were out of the room, we cut 14 the drug task force by half. Sorry. Just the way it goes, 15 buddy. 16 MR. BARTON: Which drug task force, Buster? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The one that closed the 18 doors about five or six years ago. That one. 19 MR. BARTON: Still had it in the budget? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Still here. But it's no 21 more. You have to get you a job now. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 23 MS. HARGIS: Okay, before we go to the -- say the 24 other issues, I have a couple things. There are 13 people 25 that we're going to set up to send to this school, so they'll 7-20-10 bwk 120 1 take the course in the fall, and then they'll take -- 2 actually, they'll take two courses in the fall. They're 3 going to be webinars. They will be at the classroom at the 4 Alamo College here. But because we requested this class just 5 for our people, we couldn't get an instructor up here, but we 6 could get one for the -- you know, the following semester. 7 The reason we have to do two classes is there's no discount 8 for one. We either pay $700 for one class or 700 for two, so 9 we might as well take advantage of the two. The -- the other 10 problem is, even though the school is located in Kerrville, 11 it's the Alamo College, which is based out of San Antonio, so 12 we're out of district, so we have to pay out-of-district 13 cost. That's the reason why it's higher. We have looked at 14 all the other schools. Fredericksburg is also an option, 15 maybe for another year, but they didn't offer any of the 16 courses that we felt that we wanted our people to have, and 17 so consequently, this is the way it's going to be. They'll 18 be here locally, and they'll probably do one class. Going to 19 try to get them to do it either Mondays, Wednesdays, and 20 Fridays, and then maybe the other one on Tuesdays and 21 Thursdays. So, it'll be an hour that they'll be out, and 22 that way they'll be able to have -- to help one another. And 23 this should improve a lot of the understanding of -- one of 24 the classes we want them to take is Accounting 101, which is 25 the basis of accounting, which will help them understand all 7-20-10 bwk 121 1 of the ins and outs of debits and credits, which will help 2 all of us. The second one we're talking about doing is a 3 spreadsheet; we haven't decided totally on the second one, 4 and databases so that they can understand the databases. 5 Then hopefully these 13 can then help, you know, the other 6 employees in the building too as well. So, this is the 7 beginning of a program that I think we need. I think it will 8 increase our productivity. It'll help -- there's some 9 elected officials going to this, as well some of the 10 employees, so I really think this is good. It's a good 11 start. And, again, we work real hard. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: The cost per employee is 13 approximately $700? 14 MS. HARGIS: Uh-huh. 15 MS. HYDE: Not including books. We're figuring 100 16 to 150 for books and/or workbooks. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That's pretty reasonable. 18 MS. HARGIS: And the fact that we can have it here 19 locally so that they don't have to drive. Now, they will 20 have to go to the school, but that's as far as they'll have 21 to go, to Alamo College. They'll be set up in a room over 22 there. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Then there will be an 24 educational salary increase? 25 MS. HARGIS: No, this is not -- this will be giving 7-20-10 bwk 122 1 them college credits. If they want to build on those, they 2 can, but this is not a certification. This is -- this is 3 pure educational training. 4 (Discussion off the record.) 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you want to go? 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to go somewhere else. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: There's a nice school in 8 Hawaii. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can stay at the Y.O., 10 then go to school over here. 11 MS. HARGIS: You do have to take an entry exam, 12 Buster. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's over. I'm not 14 participating. (Laughter.) 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Do they serve lunch? 16 MS. HARGIS: He already got me. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, the deal's off. 18 MS. HARGIS: Okay. I figured as much. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hargis, in looking at Fund -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Fire department, 660. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: -- 14-661? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 660. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Huh? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, 661. 25 MS. HARGIS: 661. 7-20-10 bwk 123 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Looks like we omitted a few VFD's 2 that we need to be sure and include. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Some of them are in my 4 precinct. Bill can't find them. 5 MS. HARGIS: That's all that we've ever had on the 6 list. It shows Hunt, Ingram, Tierra Linda, and Castle Lake. 7 Maybe on the actual budget, it is showing that we're -- 8 they're in there. We've had a problem this year in that when 9 we copied it over, some that are highlighted in yellow don't 10 always transfer to the report, but they are there. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I feel better. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: You got them. 13 MS. HARGIS: If you look up here at the screen, 14 you'll see they're on the master. That's all I'm -- I wanted 15 to make sure. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 17 MS. HARGIS: They're all here. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 'Cause I know you live in 19 Ingram. 20 MS. HARGIS: Yes, I do, and I need that fire 21 department. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You have to go through there 23 to get home, and they still have a rope up there for people 24 that don't -- 25 MS. HARGIS: I watch it, 'cause I know you've got 7-20-10 bwk 124 1 them looking for me. We also like the Hunt Fire Department 2 as well, so my subdivision is -- 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We like them all. 4 MS. HARGIS: That's right. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We haven't increased their 6 load in a long time either -- their contribution in quite 7 some time. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think last year we 9 increased to 2,000. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It was 2007. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Two years ago? 12 MS. HARGIS: It's been 15 ever since I've been 13 here. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We might look at that after 15 we look at some other things. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This would be a good place 17 to come back to. I agree with that. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just think how much more we 19 could do just with the increase in one truck cost out of the 20 city of Kerrville that doesn't do anything for us anyway. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 22 MS. HARGIS: But -- and then Mindy also reminded 23 me, and I don't -- I don't know that it'll be that much 24 money, but we do have our depository contract that will be up 25 for renewal with Security State Bank, so we will -- we've 7-20-10 bwk 125 1 been putting that off. We are going to have to do that this 2 year, 'cause we're at the state limit, and if we change 3 banks, there will be -- 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Cost. 5 MS. HARGIS: -- a cost involved in that. So -- and 6 then -- so we'll probably be looking at putting an RFP out. 7 Those are really big RFP's; probably put it out in January, 8 'cause you want to look at that probably in March and have 9 time to make a decision. That's a pretty involved process. 10 I've only -- I've done one since I've been here, not for 11 y'all, but as Rusty said, the people down the street. That 12 was one of my first challenges, and you have to put all the 13 services that you need in there. So I'd like -- I'll review 14 it with y'all before I ever even send it out to make sure 15 that everybody's got everything in there that they want. 16 Okay? 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Electronic services has come to be a 18 big thing, all those, hasn't it? 19 MS. HARGIS: Yes, it has. Yes, it has. And we 20 don't know who'll bid and who will not bid, but I do know 21 that a -- and I'm going to probably get this wrong; it's 22 either Hill Country State Bank or Bank of the Hills that is 23 now Klein Bank or -- 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sterling? 25 MS. HARGIS: Huh? Sterling? 7-20-10 bwk 126 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Bank of the Hills is Sterling. 2 MS. HARGIS: Sterling. They are a government-type 3 entity. They did bid on my contracts in Houston, so I would 4 like to see them bid this time. And so I think probably 5 we'll see a bid from Wells Fargo. Bank of America has quit 6 bidding on governmental a long time ago. Chase would bid if 7 we were close, but they're not. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do we have to change, or we 10 just have to put it out for bid? 11 MS. HARGIS: We have to put it out for bid. We do 12 not have to change, no. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Ms. Hyde? You have an update 14 on health issues? 15 MS. HYDE: Yep. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Health benefits plan. 17 MS. HYDE: I do. I do. 18 (Commissioner Baldwin left the courtroom.) 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have good news for us 20 today? 21 MS. HYDE: I don't. I don't. But -- 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You got food for us? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I cannot be bought with a 24 cookie. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I can. 7-20-10 bwk 127 1 MS. HYDE: They're sugar-free. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh, they're sugar-free. 3 That's good. 4 (Discussion off the record.) 5 MS. HYDE: If you're going to complain, don't eat 6 it. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are these Green Grocer 8 cookies? 9 MS. HYDE: Yes, they are, sir. We were asked to 10 put together some information for the Court back on the first 11 court meeting. This is an employee benefits survey. I've 12 got a couple extra copies if somebody wants to look at them. 13 This is an informational survey to see what the employees are 14 thinking, or what they understand. It's a very simple 15 survey. How long have you worked for the county? How old 16 are you? Are you male or female? What is your current level 17 of employment? Enrollment in the County's medical plan? 18 Have you used the medical plan during the last 12 months? If 19 so, how much? Have you used the HRA reimbursement portion 20 during the last 12 months? How much? Do you or the 21 individuals you have enrolled in the county plan have the 22 option of being enrolled in another employer-sponsored plan? 23 If so, which one? If have you a yes to Question 7, why did 24 you choose the county's plan over the alternative employer's 25 plan? And we give them several answers. How do you rate the 7-20-10 bwk 128 1 health care -- health insurance plan benefits? Then we get 2 to a couple three questions that are -- are the nitty-gritty 3 in these cost and benefit options. They get to choose 4 between keep plan benefits as they are and increase the 5 premium payment cost to employee; reduce plan benefits, but 6 keep the premium the same; or keep plan benefits as they are 7 and increase the dependents' premium. 8 Then we asked it a couple of different ways. Most 9 of y'all are -- are understanding surveys. You ask 10 questions -- the same questions different ways to see if the 11 answers are similar. To keep the medical plan benefits as 12 they are, I would be willing to pay an additional monthly 13 premium for employee-only coverage. That's -- that's 14 brand-new. And to keep the plan of medical benefits as they 15 are, I would be willing to pay additional monthly premiums 16 for dependents' coverage. And to keep the medical premium 17 cost down, I would be willing to pay a larger deductible 18 cost. To keep the medical premium cost down, I would be 19 willing to pay an increase in doctor's visit copayments. And 20 then there's comments. Hopefully they're not going to be, 21 you know, too radical comments. But I think the employees 22 ought to have the chance to look this over and talk about it. 23 I don't know how many of them read the minutes, and I don't 24 know what kind of information is getting out. I've heard a 25 wide range of comments. 7-20-10 bwk 129 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This is going out, or has gone 2 out? 3 MS. HYDE: It has not gone out yet, without y'all's 4 approval. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, good. I recommend it. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: I think we need to get it out and 7 get a quick turnaround on it. 8 MS. HYDE: I'd like to ask -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Give it to department heads, elected 10 officials, make sure they provide everybody in their 11 department, including themselves, a copy to be returned by 12 not later than close of business on Monday. 13 MS. HYDE: Monday, the 26th, close of business. 14 And that way we can start tallying numbers. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree. 16 (Commissioner Baldwin returned to the courtroom.) 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Could you repeat all that, 18 please? I'm kidding. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If you hurry, we'll give 20 you a cookie. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You missed the cookies. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Ma'am? 23 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I said if you hurry, we'll 24 give you a cookie. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is she buying votes? 7-20-10 bwk 130 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Buying votes. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Buying votes. 3 MS. HYDE: Unemployment cost has decreased. We got 4 our latest information on unemployment. I gave that letter 5 to all of you. It should have been in your boxes as well. 6 They were sent out via e-mail. It's gone down from 19 cent 7 per payroll dollar to 16 cent. That's a good chunk of 8 change. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Say that again? 10 MS. HYDE: It's gone from 19 cent per payroll 11 dollar to 16 cent per payroll dollar for the upcoming year. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't have the right 13 page. 14 MS. HYDE: In addition, we received a 31 percent 15 decrease in our worker's comp premium. It went from $174,189 16 to $120,383. We also received a $78,480 renewal credit. We 17 look to have the same this year or better. We went from 1.11 18 on our E-mod, which is experience mod, and that indicates 19 whether our losses are better than or worse than expected. 20 E-mod calc is the comparison of what our actual losses are 21 during a specific period, and they typically use the last 22 three years. 23 Okay, health insurance claims updates. I waited to 24 give that out, because I knew you guys would look at this 25 first, and I wanted you to hear the other. When we discussed 7-20-10 bwk 131 1 the health insurance on July 7th, you asked us to get the 2 claims data. I believe it was you, Commissioner Letz, and 3 Commissioner Oehler, and then the Judge hit me as well, and 4 we wanted to get information versus employees and dependents. 5 Dependents includes spouses and children, which a lot of 6 people don't understand that still to this day. Here's what 7 we found. Claims paid on dependents this year so far is 8 $831,346.17. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: How many dependents do we have on 10 the plan? 11 MS. HYDE: We have 180 total dependents. If you 12 look down, Judge, I have it broken it out for you -- 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 14 MS. HYDE: -- in that worksheet. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 16 MS. HYDE: Claims paid on employees is $469,381.30. 17 We currently have the following breakout. I did it every way 18 that I thought Commissioner Letz would hit me with. 19 Employees, active, 255. Spouses of active employees, 61. 20 Children of active employees, 116. Then you have retirees, 21 12, which count in our employee claims. Retiree spouses, 2. 22 They count in the dependent claims. You have one COBRA 23 employee and one COBRA spouse, and they count in employee and 24 dependent. So, total number of employees is 268. Total 25 dependents is 180, so our total coverage is 448 people. 7-20-10 bwk 132 1 Here's where it starts getting different. Average dollar 2 spent per employee is $1,751.42 versus average dollar spent 3 per dependent, which is $4,618.59. I'm big into ratios. I 4 went ahead and did a ratio on it; it's one dollar for every 5 $2.64 we pay on dependents. The biggest problem that we 6 have, gentlemen, if you look at this, dependents are a 7 third -- I mean, they're almost -- less than half of what we 8 have as far as full-time equivalent employees, and their cost 9 is almost double. That's very scary. So -- 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is there a -- I'm trying to 11 figure out if there's some different way I can ask one of 12 those numbers. Is the -- 13 MS. HYDE: We just got these updates last night, so 14 these numbers are new. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Dependent -- is it primarily 16 the spouses or the children that are hitting us with the 17 higher cost? Or can we tell that? 18 MS. HYDE: It's across the board. It's not making 19 any difference. You also asked for a couple of other options 20 regarding the insurance, so -- 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We'll need glasses. 22 MS. HYDE: Well, it's bigger than it was. Here's 23 some spares, if y'all want to look at them. Okay. This one 24 that you're looking at, the last time that we talked, we 25 talked about $300. Gary and I have discussed and discussed. 7-20-10 bwk 133 1 We don't want the premium payments to come out to where it's 2 too much, either. If it's too much, then it's not going to 3 matter; we're going to end up having to pay it anyhow. So, 4 we're trying to find a middle ground that will -- that will 5 cover the cost of the increase of $750,000. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What is this? 7 MS. HYDE: If you go to the last page, that will 8 make it real simple. But sometimes people want backup 9 documentation like -- so that's why that other's there. If 10 you go to the last page, if we charge $250 per spouse, which 11 is a $10 increase, and $250 per child, that will increase the 12 revenue dollars back to the County from 300,000 to 573,000. 13 With this plan -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Time out. Time out. Slow 15 down. Where are you? 16 MS. HYDE: Where are them cookies? 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Column Q. 18 MS. HYDE: Where are what numbers, sir? 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Column Q, the $250. That's 20 an additional 10 bucks per -- 21 MS. HYDE: Spouse. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- spouse. 23 MS. HYDE: Right now, it's 240 a month for a 24 spouse. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mother said don't talk with 7-20-10 bwk 134 1 your mouth full. 2 MS. HYDE: I haven't bit yet. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right, now. And then 4 you quickly went through the children thing of $250. 5 MS. HYDE: Each. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that -- what's the number 7 today? 8 MS. HYDE: $129.50, whether you have one child or 9 six. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, pretty good increase in 11 that one. 12 MS. HYDE: About $120. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And it brings -- brings 14 bottom line from what to what? 15 MS. HYDE: To $573,000. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You are eating now. 17 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I can hear it. 500 and 19 what? I'm sorry. 20 MS. HYDE: We need 750,000. This would bring it to 21 573, and this is the part where I'll probably get shot. That 22 leaves that every employee would need to pay $60 per month or 23 $30 per paycheck towards their insurance. That will make up 24 the difference. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Every employee -- 7-20-10 bwk 135 1 MS. HYDE: Every active employee. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Except for us, of course. 3 MS. HYDE: No, sir, you guys are included. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Congress does that it way. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: You are looking at running for 6 Congress? 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I've thought about it, 8 but I just dismissed it. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just learned how to spell 11 commissioner. 12 MS. HARGIS: Can we back up? Where's the column 13 that shows the employees paying? 14 MS. HYDE: It's not in there. You go back up here. 15 I left it out, 'cause I figured we'd change it multiple 16 times. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is this F.Y.I. today 18 without recommendation, or is this F.Y.I. with 19 recommendation? Have another cookie. 20 MS. HYDE: We haven't -- where'd those go that were 21 lying right there? 22 MR. BOLLIER: Which one? 23 MS. HYDE: The other set that was laying right 24 here. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If each employee was 7-20-10 bwk 136 1 increased $30 a month -- 2 MS. HYDE: Per paycheck. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: $60 a month, then everything 4 would equal out? 5 MS. HYDE: That will make up the hundred -- the 6 $750,000 that we're projecting as an increase, and will keep 7 us at -- 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: On top of the spouse 9 contribution, the dependent contribution? 10 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's correct? 12 MS. HYDE: Do what, now? 13 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: On top of the spouse 14 contribution? 15 MS. HYDE: On top of all dependent contributions, 16 yes, sir. 17 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Dependent. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So -- 19 MS. HYDE: We got 573,000. If we charge the 20 employees $60 dollars per month, that'll bring us the other 21 200,000 we need. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, to make up the full 700 23 whatever it is, $60 per month, per employee. The spouse 24 coverage goes up -- goes up $10. 25 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 7-20-10 bwk 137 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the child coverage goes to 2 250 per child, as opposed to roughly 130 for unlimited kids? 3 MS. HYDE: Right. 4 MS. HARGIS: 250 per child? 5 MS. HYDE: Yes. And what we did is we went out 6 into the market and we looked at the market -- and we looked 7 at the total insurance market, and anywhere between $200 and 8 $300 per month is not unacceptable for dependents. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Say it again? 10 MS. HYDE: We went out in the market, and we're 11 looking at middle of the range. We're not looking at 12 Cadillac versions, per se, but between $200 and $300 per 13 month, per dependent, is acceptable within the market. This 14 next one that you get -- 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, you said 16 "acceptable." You really mean sort of an average, right? 17 MS. HYDE: It's a mean. It's a median. It's a 18 median. It's a mean or median average. 19 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. May not be 20 acceptable, but that's what's happening -- 21 MS. HYDE: Well, no. No, sir, those are the 22 acceptable. Because our plan -- if you go out and you start 23 looking at our plan, it's going to be between 600 and 700 24 bucks a pop. 25 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm not debating with you. 7-20-10 bwk 138 1 It's a mean average. 2 MS. HYDE: So I did the other one where it comes 3 down a little bit, and again, it's $200 for spouses, which is 4 a reduction in cost, and it's $200 per child. If you go to 5 that final page again, that reduces our -- our return on 6 investment to $458,400, and that increases the employees' 7 contribution per month to right at 96 bucks, or $48 a 8 payroll. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Effectively $100 a month. 10 MS. HYDE: Effectively $100 a month. Gary and I 11 have talked about it. We -- I got the latest numbers last 12 night, so this is -- if you find an error in this, I haven't 13 been to bed. So, that will make it real simple. I don't 14 think there's any errors. The numbers match, and they 15 cross-reference. So, we're partial -- we're more partial to 16 the 250 and start out low with the employees, because of this 17 fact. When I look at the numbers and I look at the claims 18 dollars, of course, I'm an advocate of zero, and I go back to 19 the 300 that I originally said. But as a compromise, to look 20 at it, so that -- you know, I've got claims of almost 21 three-to-one. With -- 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Between these two, I like -- I 23 mean, "like" is probably not the right word. I would choose 24 the first one you gave us. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 7-20-10 bwk 139 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The employees paying $60, 2 'cause our primary responsibility is to the employees. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 4 MS. HYDE: I would love to be able to say that we 5 could do it for zero, but at this point, when you guys said I 6 had to find 750,000, I racked it every which way I can. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't think we can -- I 8 think the world's going that direction, and I think we'd be 9 remiss if we didn't consider it, unfortunately. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: With regard to our prescription 11 benefit as a percentage of our overall plan, how far away are 12 we from the average? We were at better than twice the 13 average. 14 MS. HYDE: We've come down about 10 percent. We 15 have six more drugs we want to add this year that are -- when 16 I said add to our tiered listing, they have gone into the 17 generic code, and my recommendation is going to be that when 18 we look at the tiered drugs, we're looking at it with a 19 different perspective, and that we do away with those 20 tiers -- that tier completely, and we do not pay for those 21 drugs any longer under our plan. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: That effectively would force a 23 generic or therapeutic equivalent. 24 MS. HYDE: I mean, we've been talking about it for 25 three years, and I don't -- I don't know how else to try to 7-20-10 bwk 140 1 get the issue through. If we allow it to stay on there, you 2 know, that's your choice, but if we pull those -- if we pull 3 15 drugs off of the tiered list of acceptables whatsoever, 4 it's straight generics or else. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: What percentage of our total drug 6 cost is that comprise? 7 MS. HYDE: Right now it's inflated, and so I 8 hesitate to say that this is accurate, because we've had some 9 severe specialties that have had to hit, so we're pulling 10 those numbers out. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: They were 80 percent at one 12 time. 13 MS. HYDE: Yeah. Yeah. But we've still got a lot 14 of the specialty drugs that are having to be used, not 15 because someone just wants them. They have to be used at 16 this point. So -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What would -- or have you 18 and/or Gary -- I guess Gary looked at what it does if we 19 raised our -- 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Copay. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, our cap. We're at 70,000 22 now. The first 70,000. 23 MS. HYDE: We're at -- 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Stop loss. 25 MS. HYDE: Our stop loss -- 7-20-10 bwk 141 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If we raise that -- 2 MS. HYDE: The stop loss carriers are doing some 3 really strange things. What they've done is they've put out 4 new contracts, and the new contracts are basically saying 5 they they'd have a 3 to 5 percent increase in cost this year, 6 but the contracts are being written so that they have 7 anywhere from a 25 to a 57 percent expected increase in year 8 two, and you have to sign a three-year contract. So we're, 9 like, holding off to even try to talk about that, because we 10 don't want to get locked into anything we can't -- 11 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What happens if the 12 expected increase in years two or three doesn't materialize? 13 MS. HYDE: Well, they're just covering -- they're 14 hedging. 15 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know. 16 MS. HYDE: I mean, they're just hedging. So, the 17 language doesn't specify that they're going to necessarily 18 stick to a 3 percent. What we're trying to get them to say 19 is if they have this language to go from anywhere from 20 to 20 57 percent, then on the flip side, if it only goes up 3 to 6 21 percent, then that needs to be in there as well. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. But, I mean -- so we 23 haven't looked at raising stop loss? 24 MS. HYDE: Right now, it won't do anything. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Won't change? 7-20-10 bwk 142 1 MS. HYDE: The only -- we're at the 70 range, and 2 once you hit 70, you have to go up to 100,000. And that 3 offset won't -- won't get it, 'cause the next question you'll 4 have then is, "How much am I paying now? And if I do that, 5 how much am I going to pay?" We've already looked at it, so 6 we're not at a return on investment stage yet. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Going back to the drugs -- 8 drug costs, the specialty drugs that are driving up the cost, 9 have you looked at establishing a ceiling by which Kerr 10 County would pay, and no more? And the employee picks up the 11 remainder of that cost? 12 MS. HYDE: We've talked about that. We've talked 13 about putting a ceiling, similar to what Medicare does and 14 Medicaid has done in the past. We looked at the first year, 15 putting it at 25,000. I thought that was outrageous. We 16 kind of were laughing about it until we went in and looked 17 and saw that we have employees that are at that range. So, 18 that was our first deal. We wanted to work it down. No 19 employees are less than $19,000 now. We can put a ceiling on 20 $15,000, maybe. We're not sure what the law will allow us to 21 do right now. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't understand the logic of 23 doing that. I mean, if it's a specialty drug that's required 24 or necessary -- 25 MS. HYDE: You're talking all drugs, right? 7-20-10 bwk 143 1 You're -- 2 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I actually was talking 3 about a ceiling that we would put on an individual. If it 4 costs $250 or 500 bucks, the most Kerr County would pay, for 5 example, would be $50. That's what I'm talking about. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: See, I think that's -- I don't 7 like that. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just an idea. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the reason is, I mean -- 10 and maybe -- my perception is that these high specialty drugs 11 are for -- a lot of times for cancer-type treatments. 12 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I understand. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And you can't -- you know, the 14 employees are already -- they're hit, I mean, with the 15 problem, but you've got to have the drug, and they don't have 16 the resources. That's why they have the insurance, is to 17 make those payments. So I don't -- 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I just wanted to know if 19 she'd examined it. 20 MS. HYDE: We looked at it. We kind of negated it. 21 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 22 MS. HYDE: Because of that. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: The -- the ones you're talking 24 about, though, expanding that schedule, that schedule of 25 seven that we now have -- 7-20-10 bwk 144 1 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: -- are ones that do have a 3 generic -- 4 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: -- equivalent? 6 MS. HYDE: They either have a generic, or what they 7 call an alternative therapeutic equivalent, and that may not 8 be generic, but it's therapeutic. 9 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And it's less of a cost? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, yeah. 11 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Plus it costs the employee 13 less to use it. 14 MS. HYDE: Right. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In copay. 16 MS. HYDE: That's right. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we tried just raising the 18 copay, and the drug companies came up with a dirty trick, 19 so -- 20 MS. HYDE: They got their coupons. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Doctors, whatever. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And they still made their 23 profit. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 25 MS. HYDE: So you asked what my recommendation was. 7-20-10 bwk 145 1 Out of the three things that we've shown you so far on this, 2 it's the $250 per dependent, and $60 per month, per employee. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: As well as the prescription drug 4 modification? 5 MS. HYDE: As well as the -- yeah. I mean, we're 6 getting the information from the prescription company; we've 7 got three more that are going generic, and we're hoping that 8 we can get them on there, so that will take us up to 17. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We're now faced with 10 contingent liabilities for retirees. We got to figure out a 11 way to fund retirees' health, even if it's costing? 12 MS. HARGIS: I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that only with the retirement 14 plans, or is that health benefits? 15 MS. HARGIS: No -- oh, the retirement plan? We 16 have -- 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. No. 18 MS. HARGIS: I don't think I understand. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're still on health, but 20 he's gone to retirees now. Do we fund the retirees' health 21 benefits? 22 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Weren't they included in 23 your employee count? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 25 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. Yeah, they're in there. They 7-20-10 bwk 146 1 gave you those. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: My question is, at one time we 3 talked about -- 4 MS. HYDE: He's talking about GASB. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, sure. 6 MS. HYDE: He's talking about GASB. Sorry, I'm 7 catching up now. 8 MS. HARGIS: We do have to show that liability, and 9 at some point in time we'll have to fund it. And if -- 10 JUDGE TINLEY: We're talking about health benefits 11 now? 12 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 14 MS. HARGIS: GASB. You have to show liability 15 of -- of the post-retirement benefit plans that you offer, 16 that being some type of life insurance or health insurance. 17 The health insurance that we provide is not at full cost, so 18 we have to show the liability for those people. That's what 19 we did the actuarial study on. That's where that $3 million 20 came in. So, at some point in time, yes, you do have to fund 21 that, 'cause that is a -- right now, an unfunded liability. 22 They take what we do -- because we don't fund the whole 23 program. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Now, given that premise, 25 there has been some discussion about no longer providing 7-20-10 bwk 147 1 health benefits coverage to retirees. 2 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. We have talked about 3 that. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: In two different contexts. One is 5 no mas, and there may be a legal issue as to that. And 6 depending upon that legal issue, it's grandfathering the 7 existing retirees, and no more future retirees, correct? 8 MS. HARGIS: I think you talked about that. I'll 9 take the hit on that. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 11 MS. HARGIS: Most -- you know, I think that most 12 over-65 retirees have the benefit of -- of Medicare. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Medicare, of course. 14 MS. HARGIS: I think the gap that we're talking 15 about is -- 16 MS. HYDE: Only between 60 and 65. And that's 17 where we disagree. My idea is that if we're supposed to be 18 protecting an employee, and this has been a benefit and one 19 of the long-term benefits for county employees as an offset 20 to what they do not make in money, that 60 to 65 need is very 21 valid. We've already passed it. You guys passed it last 22 year when I asked you to, that once they hit 65, they have to 23 go on Medicare. They have to. There is no more that will 24 carry. They can put us on as a secondary, but our cost is 25 going to be prohibitive to them. It will be cheaper for them 7-20-10 bwk 148 1 to get a supplemental, but that five-year range -- and that's 2 where Ms. Hargis and I agree to disagree. And I think that 3 those numbers will change from $3 million, and it will 4 continue to go down. I still think that if we look at just 5 the five-year range, it's not quite as expensive as what it 6 appears to be right now. 7 MS. HARGIS: It could be. It could be. And we do 8 disagree on that, because we have a lot of folks in this 9 courthouse that could retire between 60 and 65. And you have 10 the current health insurance premium right here you're 11 looking at, and then you're going to have to cover them, and 12 they're not active. They're inactive at that point, and 13 they're retired, and there's five years there. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: My point is -- 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where's your heart? 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You said good things about her 17 earlier, Buster. 18 MS. HARGIS: Well, I have a heart. That's not the 19 point. The point is, we have to take care of the people that 20 are actively here. And I know we need to take care of the 21 retirees, but most companies are having to come away from 22 that because they can't afford it. Now, we might be able to 23 offer them the insurance, but they have to pay either a 24 larger premium of some sort, you know, that -- so that our 25 liability is reduced. So that's an option. I think there 7-20-10 bwk 149 1 are options out there for that. But we seriously have to 2 look at that. 3 MS. HYDE: One of the things that Jeannie and I 4 have talked about is that we already, last year, changed it 5 so that dependents -- dependent children of retirees would be 6 at full cost, and we explained what we meant. Because y'all 7 were surprised that we have so many grandparents that are now 8 taking care of their children's children, legally. So -- and 9 I asked you last year, and y'all told me to defer it to this 10 year, so this year perhaps we need to make sure that the 11 retiree pays 50 percent of our cost and the retiree's spouse 12 pays full bore. Whatever our cost is, the retiree spouse 13 would pay, and this year it would be $885 per month. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me come back to the issue. The 15 issue really involves the unfunded portion of this retiree 16 coverage, correct? 17 MS. HARGIS: Correct. Which is -- if we cover the 18 retiree and they pay 445, right now, looking at the cost that 19 we're -- you know, we've changed it a little bit, but 20 originally the cost was $10,000 -- 10,000 and something per 21 employee. It was -- you know, and so, you know, 800 -- it's 22 going to be at least 1,000 -- almost $1,000 an employee now 23 per month. So, 445 leaves a gap -- well, it's not quite 24 that, but it's 9,000 and something. But there's a gap 25 between the 445 and that that you have to pay. And you could 7-20-10 bwk 150 1 have as many as 50 people -- 50 to 75 people between 60 and 2 65. She says no. 3 MS. HYDE: You would have -- you typically would 4 have no more than a third of your population. Our population 5 is skewed right now, but not as bad as it was when I first 6 came here. Our population was -- over-40 was the majority of 7 our folks. We're slowly but surely whittling that down. You 8 want your population to be typically a third, a third, and a 9 third. You want them like less than 35, then you want them 10 35 to 45, and then your last third -- 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Old folks? 12 MS. HYDE: The senior folks. The mature -- the 13 mature adolescent. 14 MS. HARGIS: Watch it, I'm standing next to you. 15 MS. HYDE: I said mature adolescent. So, we're not 16 quite a third, a third, a third. We've still got about 45 17 percent on up in the mature adolescent, and then they come on 18 down. 19 MS. HARGIS: So we could have a very large 20 liability in the short term, and then, yes, it would start to 21 go down. But you've got to pay for the short term, so -- 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't think we know what 23 the government's going to do, either, with all of this. 24 MS. HARGIS: We don't. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're all in limbo right now. 7-20-10 bwk 151 1 MS. HYDE: That's the issue you and I both agree 2 on, Commissioner, is that with -- let's see, how am I 3 supposed to call it? The new federal health care plan 4 proposal -- 5 MS. HARGIS: Be nice. 6 MS. HYDE: -- and GASB, I mean, that's crazy. 7 You've got two different platforms here that are telling you 8 you've got to fund this. Well, I should either have to fund 9 it here or I should fund it here, not both. And GASB either 10 needs to change, or the new federal health care plan should 11 modify, one of the two. 12 MS. HARGIS: And part of that new federal health 13 care plan is to cover retirees, if you read the paperwork. 14 MS. HYDE: Right. 15 MS. HARGIS: So we may have no choice as to that. 16 And our actuary said let's wait. I would recommend this year 17 not going to grandfather the plan which we're changing it 18 now, that we wait another year, because I think once that the 19 Texas House and Senate go back, they're going to be looking 20 at things as well, and perhaps this will settle out. I don't 21 know. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: This whole thing is 23 totally -- you can't even get a handle on what it is that it 24 means. I've read all the stuff on it that I can get my hands 25 on, and it is absolutely bizarre. I mean, one part of it you 7-20-10 bwk 152 1 could actually -- you could actually pay the penalty by not 2 having insurance, and come out a whole lot cheaper than what 3 we're paying right now. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 5 MS. HARGIS: Well -- 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What sense does that make? 7 MS. HARGIS: If you want to look at the AT&T web 8 site, that's exactly -- they've got a big ad out there. So, 9 I think we're going to see a lot of change in the next 12 10 months. I would recommend that we not worry about this as 11 much this year, and take it up again next year. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Then I think we ought to take 13 it -- just thumb our nose at them and say, "Come get us." 14 You know, really. We're doing a really fine job, I think. 15 We have a really good plan. That was the goal of all this to 16 begin with. 17 MS. HYDE: That's right. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And now we're going to 19 penalize -- or the government's going to penalize employees 20 and employers for having a good plan. That's just nuts. 21 MS. HARGIS: Well, and we're getting very close to 22 the Cadillac plan. If we get to what the $20,000 -- 23 MS. HYDE: We're not going to be. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So I don't think anybody 25 knows what's going to come out of all of it. Nobody can even 7-20-10 bwk 153 1 write an interpretation of what the law means at this point. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: One of the benefits to retirees that 3 participate in our plan is the fact that -- now, I don't know 4 when all this preexisting thing is going to wash with out 5 under the federal plan, but if you go out in the private 6 marketplace right now, that's still doable. With the 7 preexisting, you can get hit with that. So, a large piece of 8 the attractiveness of our plan to retirees is, I still don't 9 have to worry about preexisting. 10 MS. HARGIS: That's true. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: And that preexisting could very well 12 be worth paying full premium. 13 MS. HARGIS: And we -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Particularly when you look at the 15 prescription plan that's included within this. That solves a 16 lot of ills. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It would be a bargain. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: A lot of ills, when you consider 19 those two factors. Plus you address the GASB issue. Now, 20 it's -- 21 MS. HARGIS: You're still offering the coverage, 22 but you're just offering it -- and you may, instead of 23 staying at $100 or $200 of that premium, which would help 24 anyone, but I think to take on 500, 600, $700, with the cost 25 of our current plan being so high, I think that's where we 7-20-10 bwk 154 1 kind of have a problem. But we don't know what these numbers 2 are going to be. 3 MS. HYDE: Right. 4 MS. HARGIS: We've had two huge increases since 5 I've been here. When I came three years ago, it was at a 6 million, four. It is now two million, nine, so we -- we have 7 really taken some huge jumps in three years. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 9 MS. HARGIS: And it's really hard to sustain that. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: You can't. You absolutely cannot. 11 You've got to -- you got to adjust your plan. And it's 12 either that, or just throw the burden on the taxpayers. It's 13 virtually unbearable. 14 MS. HARGIS: The only question I would ask is, 15 because of the cost of the dependents that they drop, is that 16 going to drop our premium? 17 MS. HYDE: It will -- we'll just have to redo, just 18 like we've always done. 19 MS. HARGIS: Because we can't depend on that money. 20 That's money -- 21 MS. HYDE: What we're depending on is the number of 22 employees, the 274 that we've always used. 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If some of the dependents 24 fall off, it also reduces your -- 25 MS. HYDE: Liability. 7-20-10 bwk 155 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- your liability. 2 MS. HYDE: And our claims. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Because of just what you 4 showed us today. 5 MS. HYDE: That was the key in showing you what the 6 claims were. I kept it as simple as possible. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If somebody doesn't want to 8 pay that 250, whatever it is, a month -- 9 MS. HYDE: When you come at it from a risk 10 management perspective, what it is that we're trying to do, 11 trying to decrease our risk, how you do that is you bring 12 yourself up in the market, bring yourself at market value or 13 above, and that forces some decisions. And I don't mean that 14 ugly. I mean, I'm trying to look at it with part of a heart, 15 but also from a business financial perspective, which is what 16 I'm used to. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But is the impact you're more 18 likely to have those dependents, the coverage that's the 19 least risky, drop off, and those that are more risky are 20 probably likely to stay? 21 MS. HYDE: Well, they won't be able to pick and 22 choose, as far as if they have, like, multiple children. If 23 they have multiple children, they can't keep one on and put 24 another one on another. It's all or nothing. I mean, I 25 might be a turnip, but I didn't just fall off the truck. 7-20-10 bwk 156 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the people -- people know 2 their -- the health of their family, and they're going to 3 keep -- the unhealthy risk is going to stay, because they 4 know it's worth it to them to pay, and the ones that are on 5 the healthier side or tend to be healthier, they'll roll the 6 dice quicker, because -- 7 MS. HYDE: That's right. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So I'm wondering if it's going 9 to help our claims that much if we -- and we -- 10 MS. HYDE: This is a pretty big hit towards 11 children, because we're doing it per capita. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 13 MS. HYDE: And I've been telling y'all for three 14 years it's coming, and you guys have kind of told me, "Back 15 off." Well, it's here. And I know it's large, but I don't 16 feel like it's -- it would be correct to force this burden on 17 the employees, the active employees. If you look at the 18 claims dollars -- and I can -- if you guys want more 19 information, I can give you more. But our claims dollars, 20 this is -- this is typical. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Our priority here needs to be first 22 and foremost -- 23 MS. HYDE: Our employees. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: -- our employees that are working 25 for us right this red-hot minute. 7-20-10 bwk 157 1 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: And to provide the best we can with 3 the resources that we got available. 4 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: And if -- if other parts of that 6 plan have got to suffer, or if there are others, even, for 7 example, active employees that are burdening the plan, just 8 like we did with the -- with the seven prescription drugs, if 9 there are folks that are -- that are putting an unreasonable 10 burden so that we've got to adjust that so that we can keep 11 the other employees in as good a position as we can, we've 12 got to do that. 13 MS. HYDE: We've got some other options as well 14 that won't bring as big a bang to the buck back to the table. 15 But, you know, we can always look at decreasing the HRA 16 benefit where the HRA benefit is for active employees only, 17 not dependents at all, and you cut it. You cut it to the 18 active employees. I mean, I'm trying not to get too radical 19 on you at one time. Because this one right here, even at 250 20 bucks a pop, is pretty radical. If you have two children, 21 that's $500 now. 22 MS. HARGIS: Well -- 23 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 6,000 bucks a year for one 24 heck of an insurance plan. 25 MS. HYDE: One heck of one, you're right. And it's 7-20-10 bwk 158 1 pre-tax dollars. So, if I'm going to get quoted out there, 2 you know, let's throw it out there. These are pre-tax 3 dollars. It's going to decrease their tax on the front end. 4 And, let's see, the other one that I was getting hit with is 5 we have a lot of single parents. Again, it's going to 6 decrease their tax. They'll probably end up with more E.I.C. 7 credit. And I went ahead and did my homework and talked to 8 the District Judges and to the County Court at Law Judge and 9 to our County Judge to make sure, and then I went upstairs 10 and talked to the District Clerk, just to get some copies of 11 it. But in all your court orders, when you have divorces 12 with children, or if you have a paternity suit with children, 13 it's in those records that it states that part of it -- well, 14 can you say the official version, Judge, about the -- 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you'll -- part of the child 16 support award is that you provide health insurance coverage. 17 MS. HYDE: Right. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure. Been that way for a number of 19 years. 20 MS. HYDE: And the easy answer from all the judges 21 was that if we have an increase like this, and it impacts 22 their -- their cost, they take it back, and that cost 23 judgment goes up. So -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, we end on the bad news, don't 25 we? 7-20-10 bwk 159 1 MS. HARGIS: We're not through yet. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Are we ready to put it to bed for 3 now? We're obviously going to need to do at least one, maybe 4 more than one, more workshop. 5 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks that way. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think so. 7 MS. HARGIS: Are you -- 8 JUDGE TINLEY: Question, Ms. Hyde. 9 MS. HARGIS: Are we going to present this or not? 10 MS. HYDE: Oh, god. 11 MS. HARGIS: We have one more thing. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: How are you doing, Kathy? 13 MS. HARGIS: You all right? 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't like the way y'all 15 are doing this. Do I need to hire a lawyer? 16 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Probably two. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Two. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Brought a suitcase with them. 20 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, just get yourself a 21 tiger here. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: A tiger. 24 MS. HARGIS: Okay. Are we ready to get shot for 25 this one? This is even worse. 7-20-10 bwk 160 1 MS. HYDE: No. 2 MS. HARGIS: This is good news, I hope. 3 MS. HYDE: Yeah. We went back, and the last three 4 years I've asked some questions. And I do understand, and I 5 come from the outside and I understand that, but when we make 6 our compensation decisions, we don't look at them as a 7 business. We don't look at them on management authority. We 8 don't look at them as fiscal assets. We don't look at 9 degrees of education required to do the job or certifications 10 that are required. We don't look at budgetary 11 responsibilities. We don't look at it as a business. We 12 don't make widgets, so we can't make more revenue. The only 13 revenue that we have basically is tax dollars. So, I've 14 heard this isn't a good year for raises. Well, I ask, 15 gentlemen, when is a good year? 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: When there's a big increase 17 in tax valuation. 18 MS. HYDE: There we go. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And also your -- 20 MS. HYDE: And elected officials -- most of your 21 senior management here in the county are elected officials, 22 so that means you need voters, and voters aren't real happy 23 when you talk about raising taxes. So, that always is a 24 downer when you talk about raising taxes to try to increase 25 revenues. Our revenues have decreased for multiple reasons. 7-20-10 bwk 161 1 But when we look at counterparts in the similar or same 2 positions, we still are below. So, I'm going to start out 3 with the County Judge. His counterpart makes in excess of 4 $140,000. So, we've looked at it, and some things that this 5 County Judge does got me to thinking. Two years ago -- and 6 he kind of said, "Just leave it alone. Don't do this. Don't 7 bring it up." Well, this time we did it without asking. So, 8 he does juvenile, he does probate, and he does your M.H.M.R., 9 at no cost. He doesn't get anything for doing that other 10 than his regular salary. However, comma, if he was not a 11 lawyer in good standing in the great state of Texas, and was 12 an elected county judge, every one of these cases within 13 those courts, all they have to say is, "He's not a lawyer. I 14 want it in a real courtroom; I want it with a real lawyer," 15 and then that would put -- put more into our County Court at 16 Law. So, the recommendation is to give him an additional 17 $5,000 for juvenile, $5,000 for probate, and $5,000 for 18 M.H.M.R., and give him a 10 percent raise across the board to 19 bring him up to $103,365. On you Commissioners, you are our 20 agents, like a board of directors. We're requesting a 10 21 percent increase across the board for y'all. County Clerk, 22 District Clerk, Tax Assessor, and Auditor, another 10 percent 23 across the board, and also the Treasurer. The County 24 Attorney -- isn't he maxed out? Or close -- 25 MS. HARGIS: Close to maxing out. 7-20-10 bwk 162 1 MS. HYDE: Close to maxing out. County Court at 2 Law, he's maxed out. For the Sheriff, if we look at other 3 folks that are around -- some people don't like it, but also 4 we look at a supplement for him. Instead of having elected 5 officials where they come in at a higher rate of pay, some of 6 these things need to be supplementals based upon their 7 certification or their education or their experience. 8 (Commissioner Baldwin left the courtroom.) 9 MS. HYDE: So, in his case, he is a master peace 10 officer with over 20 years experience. What I didn't know 11 for a long time is that anyone can run for sheriff. You 12 don't even have to be a peace officer. So, again, we go back 13 to supplementals. And we'd just like for you guys to look at 14 this. The raises for employees would reduce down to COLA, 15 which is 2.5 percent, and the cost of these raises versus the 16 5 percent across the board is less. 17 MS. HARGIS: It's about half a million dollars 18 less. We know you have to digest this. We also have the 19 non-elected on the other side, and those jobs again were 20 compared to the marketplace and what they would be making in 21 the marketplace. And -- 22 MS. HYDE: There might be some questions on the 23 constables only receiving a 2.5. I know most of y'all are 24 math majors in some form or fashion. They're getting 25 brand-new cars this year. So, instead of 5 -- instead of 5 7-20-10 bwk 163 1 percent, it's a 2.5. Road and Bridge, he is pretty much 2 maxed out above market, so it's 2.5 for that one as well. 3 And the Juvenile Detention, he is at or above. 4 MS. HARGIS: The jail. 5 MS. HYDE: And that would be 2.5. 6 MS. PIEPER: Still wouldn't make as much as a city 7 clerk. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Where's the news media 9 whenever you need it? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're here. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Right here. 12 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Oh, there he is. I didn't 13 see him. He was behind the two at the podium. Podium's in 14 the way. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's -- I'll just make 16 a general comment. It's interesting to look at. It's not 17 the right year. 18 MS. HYDE: Even if it is cheaper than a 5 percent 19 across the board? 20 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, not from my perspective. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Still not the right year. 22 MS. PIEPER: Why is it not the right year? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Because I think we need to look 24 at -- we're looking at a lot of unknowns going into the 25 future. Budgets are tight. Taxpayers are maxed out, and I 7-20-10 bwk 164 1 don't think it's the right thing for the -- for the elected 2 officials, which basically is the five of us, to ask for an 3 increase like this. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Appreciate the work you've 5 done, but I think that there may be a better day than this 6 day. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I won't say it's not needed on 8 some, and I think it's good to look at them. I think it 9 shows, you know, some of the departments that are way, way 10 out of line, and it doesn't mean that we can't do something 11 on some of those departments, possibly. I think that you -- 12 I think, you know, the Sheriff's -- you know, it's pretty 13 interesting how much -- the number y'all came up with, how 14 far off we are. He's by far the -- you know, and based on 15 the size of his budget, the number of employees, the -- you 16 know, it's -- you know, it makes sense. 17 MS. HYDE: Same thing with the County Judge. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. County Judge, I agree, 19 he does a lot, obviously, in those other areas. And I'm not 20 sure -- I think -- it seems to me that most county judges are 21 attorneys. You know, not all. Well, you know, he's saying 22 no. A lot -- 23 MS. HARGIS: No, there's a lot that aren't. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Out of 254 counties, it 25 traditionally runs between 30 and 35 of the judges in those 7-20-10 bwk 165 1 counties are licensed lawyers. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 3 MS. HYDE: Very low. It's very low. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Pretty low. 5 MS. HYDE: Most of it goes into County Court at Law 6 or -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 8 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I think we have to devote 9 our attention, not necessarily in today's meeting, but in the 10 future, to the employee group as a whole. What, if anything, 11 we can do for employees. The cost-of-living continues to 12 increase. We know about that, and I think that's where we 13 need to focus a large amount of our attention. 14 MS. HARGIS: I still think you need -- if you don't 15 want to look towards the elected officials, we do have some 16 disparity in the department heads that -- and take me out of 17 it, but we do have some disparities in the department heads 18 that I would like for you to address, that I think would 19 be -- 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's -- you know, I 21 think it is -- I'm glad y'all looked at it the way you did. 22 I think that makes sense. But -- 23 MS. HARGIS: And we didn't do it by the person; we 24 did it by the position. 25 MS. HYDE: By position. 7-20-10 bwk 166 1 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's the way it ought to 2 be. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The number of employees, size 4 of the budget, and -- 5 MS. HYDE: Like outside. Like outside. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You know, you can't always get 7 the education requirements, but you can get an idea. 8 MS. HARGIS: So I will tell you that the 5 percent 9 is around a hundred -- it's a million -- a million, one. 10 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 5 percent? 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I thought it was 750,000 when 12 it was told to us earlier. 13 MS. HARGIS: Well, when we -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What happened? 15 MS. HARGIS: With the roll-ups -- you got to have 16 the roll-ups. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay, that's the roll-ups. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 5 percent across the board? 19 Is that what you're telling me? 20 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 21 MS. HYDE: What I asked for the first time, 5 22 percent across the board plus your FICA, Medicare, you know, 23 all your extras. That's what made it go up. 24 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What, Jeannie? 25 MS. HARGIS: Just a second. 7-20-10 bwk 167 1 JUDGE TINLEY: 1.1. 2 MS. HYDE: 1.1 million. 3 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. 4 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, it's 1.1. Well, there's two 5 different ones. It's $1,061,048. 6 MS. HYDE: 5 percent. 7 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 2.5 is about 550 or change? 8 MS. HYDE: 2.5 is $606,361. 9 MS. HARGIS: Now, that includes two -- two point -- 10 the 2.5 and the 5 percent, but it also includes the new 11 employee -- the letter that you received from Eva asking for 12 additional employees. 13 MS. HYDE: All the increases, the 2.5's and the 14 certifications. 15 MS. HARGIS: So that's -- you've got two categories 16 here, everybody getting 2.5 percent and then the 17 certifications, the special certifications, additional 18 employees that have been requested, that you haven't approved 19 yet, that -- that have been requested by several different 20 departments. I think we have two new employees in that list. 21 And the biggest thing with those new employees is the health 22 insurance. You take two new employees; with the health 23 insurance roll-up, it's $20,000. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Those two at the airport? 25 MS. HARGIS: No, that's the -- Maintenance has 7-20-10 bwk 168 1 asked for another employee, and then the Sheriff's Department 2 asked for a deputy. 3 MS. HYDE: Sheriff's deputies. You got two from 4 Maintenance. You've got -- let's see. The only additional 5 adds in personnel, not counting the airport, is Maintenance, 6 one. 7 MS. HARGIS: And Sheriff. 8 MS. HYDE: Sheriff, one. That's it. Just two. We 9 had a reduction. We had an offset, because we had a 10 reduction in force in the County Clerk's office, so the net 11 increase is one employee. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Where's the new one in the 13 Sheriff -- 14 MS. HYDE: Deputy position. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: New deputy? 16 MS. HYDE: He wants -- he would like to have 17 another deputy. 18 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Over the current 19 complement? 20 MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. It would increase the total 21 deputies from 16 to 17. 22 MS. HARGIS: This includes Road and Bridge and 23 everybody. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Is that it? 25 MS. HYDE: That's it. 7-20-10 bwk 169 1 MS. HARGIS: That's it. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: I guess Buster liked what she had to 3 say. He just left. 4 COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He left early. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, gentlemen. Anything else? 6 Okay, let's fold it up. 7 MS. HARGIS: Do we want to set another workshop 8 session Monday? Do you want to think about it? 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Going to have to be next Tuesday, 11 maybe. But I don't know when we'll be able to have more 12 input from Gary in order to -- 13 MS. HARGIS: We kind of need you guys to decide 14 what we're going to do with employees so we can plug that in, 15 see what that looks like. 16 (Budget workshop concluded at 5:03 p.m.) 17 - - - - - - - - - - 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7-20-10 bwk 170 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 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 6 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 7 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 3rd day of August, 2010. 8 9 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 10 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 11 Certified Shorthand Reporter 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7-20-10 bwk