1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Budget Workshop 10 Tuesday, July 12, 2011 11 1:30 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 GUY R. OVERBY, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X July 12, 2011 2 PAGE 3 Review and discuss FY 2011-12 Budgets and fiscal, capital expenditure and personnel 4 matters related thereto, including, but not limited to, employee health care benefits, 5 step and grade, staffing levels, and Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center renovations 3 6 --- Adjourned 90 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 On Tuesday, July 12, 2011, at 1:30 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: Okay, let's come to order on a 8 Commissioners Court workshop posted and scheduled for today, 9 Tuesday July 12th, 2011, at 1:30 p.m. It's a bit past that 10 time now. The workshop agenda item is review and discuss 11 fiscal year 2011-12 budgets and fiscal capital expenditure 12 and personnel matters related thereto, including, but not 13 limited to, employee health care, step and grades, staffing 14 levels, and Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center renovations. 15 Has Mr. Looney arrived yet? I don't see him. Let's go to 16 the Hill Country Youth Exhibit Center. I'm going to lay it 17 over on you, Guy, for openers. And -- 18 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: All right. We placed that on 19 our workshop today for discussion. As you know, we've been 20 talking about the potential, looking at the renovations and 21 the expansion of the ag facility on Highway 27. The purpose 22 of our workshop here today, Commissioners, to listen to and 23 discuss, is to find out what type of funding revenue or -- or 24 potential funding that we could use that we might look at in 25 helping that project move forward. I've -- we've asked Rob 7-12-11 bwk 4 1 Henneke to kind of come and visit with us a little bit this 2 morning on looking at some potential funding sources that we 3 might look at as far as trying to move this facility forward. 4 Again, just for everybody that knows here that we have a 5 facility here that has an original building that is 56 years 6 old next year, and we have another part of the facility 7 that's an indoor arena -- that is an indoor arena that is 8 about 31 years old next year, so we have two facilities that 9 are -- that are really needing to be looked at a potential 10 renovation project. 11 Just also for information here, we've talked about, 12 and we've made a presentation to our 4B Economic Improvement 13 Corporation here in the community about seeing what type of 14 participation our local economic 4B funding will look at, for 15 this project to be looked at. The Commissioners have 16 requested that I make a presentation to our E.I.C., which we 17 did in June, requesting funding for Phase I and II of that 18 project, and at that time we talked about looking at the 19 renovations of the indoor arena and the tearing down of the 20 old original building and putting up a new show barn. 21 E.I.C.'s comments were that they wanted to look at what would 22 the whole project look like as far as if we did the exhibit 23 center. And again, also make sure we understand, this is not 24 a convention center. An exhibit center that's ag-related, 25 and we had a total package of $13.8 million that included the 7-12-11 bwk 5 1 design and engineering and the equipment of this project. 2 The presentation was made to Economic Improvement Corporation 3 in June. Their request was to come back and to look at the 4 whole project and moving forward. 5 We had an additional list of questions that we were 6 asked to answer, and we answered those questions, but I'm 7 just going to name some of the contents that were included in 8 this presentation that was given to the initial response team 9 of the 4B Economic Improvement Corporation that will go to 10 the committee members. We explained the capital campaign 11 plan, private sector partnerships, private sector 12 partnerships on what might be competitive markets with our ag 13 facility here and who would be competitors against us. We 14 looked at a marketing plan, new business attraction, what 15 type of new organizations that could come in, agricultural 16 industry reviews, and the financial information, the current 17 structure that -- what we're -- revenue that we're 18 generating, and potential revenue that could be generated if 19 the project was to move forward. So, again, we are scheduled 20 to go back to E.I.C. on Monday, the 18th, to make a request 21 for funding. I will let the Commissioners Court again know 22 that our request in order to -- E.I.C. wanted to see how we 23 can move this project ahead, forward. 24 The recommendation that we made in our presentation 25 was to ask for a third/third/third as far as potential 7-12-11 bwk 6 1 possibilities. The fairest way and the quickest way to move 2 this project forward, a third from the county, a third from 3 the private sector, and a third from our E.I.C. 4B economic 4 sales tax. We -- we are going to make that request with them 5 on Monday. And, again, as far as E.I.C. is concerned, we're 6 open to several ideas there with them, even potentially 7 having their request -- if we're wanting to do the whole 8 project, have their funding on the back end of that project 9 to be potentially used. So, what I've asked Rob Henneke -- 10 and Rob has spent some time last week in looking at what are 11 -- what are our options as far as how we might look at 12 possibly funding a third of this project from the county. 13 I will tell the Commissioners here today that one of the very 14 first questions that E.I.C. will ask on Monday is, "What will 15 the county participation level be in moving this project 16 forward?" And I know that that will be the first question 17 that we have to answer. 18 And if that's something that we -- we need to be 19 able to make a decision or have some kind of guidance on this 20 to move forward from there. I do know that E.I.C. was 21 favorable in wanting us to come back and to discuss that, 22 this project in moving forward in the community. You might 23 have any comments that you have, and when we talk about this, 24 I have had very -- most of the comments that I've heard back 25 in the community have been very positive about this project. 7-12-11 bwk 7 1 Again, the educational component and the -- and the economic 2 component benefit to our community is significant, and so, 3 Rob, I'm going to ask you to come up and share with us what 4 information that you can share with us that we can discuss 5 about -- again, about the potential part of the funding for 6 this mechanism, and what -- what options we might have at 7 this time in 2011. 8 MR. HENNEKE: Commissioner Overby, thank you. 9 Gentlemen, I was asked to look at options for increasing -- 10 initially, I looked at -- asked to look at options for 11 increasing sales tax revenue that the County collects. Back 12 in 1987, under what is now Chapter 323 of the Local 13 Government Code, when the statute was passed, the county the 14 same year adopted a half-cent sales and use tax county-wide, 15 which has been in effect ever since then. In addition to 16 that half cent, the county collects -- within the city 17 limits, there's another penny and a half that's collected in 18 between the city of Kerrville and also the Economic 19 Development Corporation. I think city of Ingram also has a 20 sales tax there. But we were asked to look at what ways we 21 could -- we could increase the sales tax revenue that we 22 have, and how much we could do that by. 23 Working with -- with Jeannie, we were connected 24 with the Local Government Assistance and Economic Development 25 department at the Texas Comptroller's office, and I had the 7-12-11 bwk 8 1 opportunity to meet with Sarah Hall and Russell Gallahan, who 2 run that department for Comptroller Combs, who are really 3 the -- kind of the experts in local government revenue, and 4 very, very knowledgeable. They took quite a bit of their 5 time last week to meet with me to look at our sales tax 6 numbers, look at where we were, and to present some -- some 7 options that they identified for us, some of which we knew, 8 and others, which I'll get to in a minute, really hadn't been 9 proposed or put out there. But the first question what I 10 want to address was specifically with regard to the County 11 increasing its sales tax revenue. How do we do that? 12 Well, under Chapter 323, the sales and use tax that 13 we currently have, we are maxed out at a half cent. That -- 14 that's all you can collect under 323. However, there is -- 15 under Chapter 387 of the Local Government Code, there is a 16 mechanism called a county assistance district, which is a 17 separate type of entity that can be created, and through that 18 entity, you can -- the county can collect an additional half 19 cent sales tax, although the maximum that -- maximum of sales 20 tax that can be collected through local governmental entities 21 within the county is capped at 2 percent. So, in flipping 22 through the -- the presentation that the Comptroller's office 23 made, and in preparation for the meeting I had with them, 24 this County Assistance District was -- was created back in 25 1999 by the Legislature then, and initially it was just 7-12-11 bwk 9 1 limited to only certain counties, and over time through 2007, 2 it has been expanded to where now all counties can qualify 3 for it. But because it's such a new mechanism, if we were to 4 take this route and -- and we would be on a cutting edge of 5 counties that are opting for this funding mechanism. 6 Now, county assistance district is a sales tax that 7 the county can use to fund a variety of programs and 8 projects. The county commissioners court is actually the 9 governing body of the special assistance district, even 10 though a special assistance district is itself a political 11 subdivision, and the county can, in doing so, creating the 12 district, it can be defined to include or exclude any part of 13 the county. Under Chapter 387 of the Local Government Code, 14 county assistance district can fund up to a maximum of 15 one-half percent of sales tax, so that would be one-half 16 percent of sales tax in addition to the one-half percent 17 sales tax that we already collect through Chapter 323 of the 18 Local Government Code. The -- and I'm looking at the slide 19 that says local sales tax for Kerr County. In Kerr County's 20 situation, if we were to create a county assistance district, 21 we would do so -- we would only be able to do so to create a 22 district outside the municipal limits for Kerrville and 23 Ingram. Kerrville and Ingram are already maxed out, and so 24 we could not do this within those city limits. 25 And because we can't do that, it streamlines the 7-12-11 bwk 10 1 process, because under the statute, there's a mechanism for 2 having to go to the municipal governmental organizations 3 asking for their permission to assess a sales tax. They go 4 back and forth. But by drawing a district that would 5 specifically exclude city of Kerrville and city of Ingram, 6 that makes that process faster, and one that we can probably 7 put on the November ballot if -- if the Court chose to go in 8 this direction. And that's what -- that's how this tax would 9 come into effect. This is a -- required to be approved by 10 the voters. It's voter initiative. It's something the 11 Court, if it chose to, would call for an election, but it 12 would have to be approved by the voters of the district as to 13 whether or not they wanted to create this district and impose 14 a sales tax at this level. 15 The Comptroller projects that if Kerr County 16 created a county assistance district for the district to 17 exclude Kerrville and Ingram, that a half cent would 18 generate, at 2010 fiscal year numbers, an additional $250,921 19 in revenue. So, how you create one is that the Commissioners 20 Court calls an election. The election order defines the 21 boundaries of the district, and then the election must be 22 held within the named boundaries. Basically, if you have a 23 November election, then, you know, you'd start to collect in 24 April and you'd start seeing that revenue in June, if I 25 understand correctly. How the funds can be used is -- is 7-12-11 bwk 11 1 pretty limitless. I mean, under -- specifically under the 2 statute, you can use the funds, that $250,000 extra that 3 would be generated, for economic development, tourism, roads, 4 firefighting, law enforcement, libraries, museums, parks, or, 5 quote, services that benefit the public welfare. 6 And that's a pretty broad category that I think 7 would be inclusive of most type of expenditures that the 8 County would want to use those funds for, potentially freeing 9 up funds for other purposes. The rate can be changed or 10 appealed in an election called by the Commissioners Court. 11 There is no authorization for a voter-initiated petition to 12 decrease or abolish the tax. And, as I understand -- I did 13 ask him what happens if the City expands their municipal 14 limits through annexation, and the response from the 15 Comptroller's office, because they're already maxed out 16 within the city limits, the district -- the county assistance 17 district would most likely shrink, would not be able to keep 18 that sales tax rate within the new annexed section of -- of 19 the city limits. 20 Two examples of counties that are doing this right 21 now are Jim Hogg County and Rockwall County. Jim Hogg County 22 adopted this county-wide in 2006, and since June of '07, has 23 collected more than $1.1 million in revenue. Rockwall 24 County, likewise, has been doing this since May of '05, and 25 since December of '05 has collected more than $1.2 million. 7-12-11 bwk 12 1 So, this is just for your nighttime reading enjoyment. I did 2 print off a copy of the actual Local Government statute that 3 talks about the county assistance district and -- and how 4 it's created. But if Kerr County wants to increase its sales 5 tax receipts, I'm advised by the Comptroller's office that 6 this is the only and the maximum way to do so. Whereas it is 7 true that the maximum sales tax that can be collected is up 8 to two pennies, and outside the city limits, we're currently 9 only at a half cent, we could only go up another half cent 10 because there are no additional mechanisms for Kerr County to 11 collect other types of sales tax receipts. 12 However, looking down the road, there are other 13 types of entities that can collect sales tax outside the city 14 limits, such as an emergency services district. We have two 15 right now; they're collecting ad valorem taxes. But if we do 16 look at a county-wide emergency services district for 17 emergency -- EMS services, for example, it would be an option 18 to look at part of their funding mechanism, not just ad 19 valorem taxation, but they could assess up to a penny -- or 20 right now, they could assess up to a penny and a half, and 21 maybe -- maybe offset some of the property tax implications 22 on that. So, with this option, really, the -- like I said, 23 it would project, to the generated last year's numbers, 24 approximately $250,000 in revenue for a district that would 25 just exclude -- be all of Kerr County except for the cities 7-12-11 bwk 13 1 of Kerrville and Ingram. 2 To get this passed, it has to be approved by the 3 voters. Really, the only authority that you gentlemen have 4 is to give the voters a chance to choose if this is something 5 that they would want to put in effect by calling for an 6 election and passing a resolution to do so. I haven't fully 7 researched the Election Code. I think it's roughly 70 days 8 before the election that this would -- the call would need to 9 be put on for this to be put on the ballot, which would give 10 you until about mid-August to take that action to do this. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rob? 12 MR. HENNEKE: Yes, sir? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Question on the chart that the 14 local -- that chart. 15 MR. HENNEKE: Mm-hmm. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ingram's maxed out at one and a 17 half percent, but there's another half cent out there if the 18 total can get up to two. Where's the other half? 19 MR. HENNEKE: Kerr County's already collecting, 20 under 323, the sales and use tax we already have. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I don't know -- I 22 hear -- or I've heard Bexar County -- I think the Alamodome 23 is county-owned, I think, maybe, or partly funded, and in 24 Bexar County they have -- 25 MR. HENNEKE: I don't think we could draw 7-12-11 bwk 14 1 professional football people to Kerr County. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's a county-wide -- or I 3 think they said a county-wide motel tax, or -- 4 MR. HENNEKE: Mm-hmm. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that -- is that an option? 6 MR. HENNEKE: It's funny you should mention that. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: He's going to get to that. That's 8 next. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: He's getting there. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Segued right into it. 11 MR. HENNEKE: While I was meeting with Mr. Gallahan 12 and Ms. Hall, telling them about the ideas for development of 13 the Hill Country Youth Exhibit -- Exhibition Center, and kind 14 of the ideas that we're looking to be able to fund and 15 generate economic development here, Mr. Gallahan's response 16 was, "Why don't y'all do a special hotel tax?" And I said, 17 "I'm not familiar with that; please tell me more." And what 18 he has done is brought my attention to another provision of 19 the Local Government Code which allows -- basically, in 20 short, allows for a hotel tax to be laid county-wide, 21 inclusive of the city limits, on top of the existing hotel 22 taxes that are currently assessed. And that tax is 23 specifically, by statute, dedicated to the funding of a venue 24 project, a -- you know, a venue project being, you know, an 25 arena, coliseum, stadium or other type of area or facility 7-12-11 bwk 15 1 used for sports events, community events, other sports 2 events, including rodeos, livestock shows, agricultural 3 expositions, promotional events, and other civic or 4 charitable events. Have y'all heard of anyone here in Kerr 5 County? 6 How this works is, looking under the Chapter 7 334.251, Subchapter H of Chapter 334 of the Local Government 8 Code, a county, by order, may impose up to a two-penny -- 9 2 percent hotel tax that can only go to an approved venue 10 project after said tax is approved at an election held by the 11 county. It has to be voter-approved. The -- the tax rate is 12 not to exceed more than 2 percent of the price paid for a 13 room in a hotel. The ballot proposition has to specifically 14 adopt and specify the maximum tax rate, and the -- the tax in 15 here is in addition to the tax collected under 351, 352 of 16 the Tax Code. I'm trying to find that provision. But that's 17 where, as I understand this, and I've had a crash course in 18 hotel tax in the last week, but the 7 percent that the city 19 assesses for their hotel tax comes under Chapter 351 or 352 20 of the Tax Code. And this statute specifies that this -- 21 yeah, under 334.253, Subsection C, the tax imposed by this 22 subchapter is in addition to a tax imposed under Chapter 351 23 or 352 of the Tax Code. 24 So, part of the requirements are, if the Court 25 passes a resolution wanting to do this, then there's an 7-12-11 bwk 16 1 intermediate step where the resolution has to be submitted to 2 the Comptroller's office for the Comptroller to evaluate the 3 resolution to determine whether or not there would be a 4 negative fiscal -- significant negative fiscal impact on 5 state revenue. If it is, then the Comptroller has to 6 basically publish a report telling the county or municipality 7 how to change the resolution so that the implementation will 8 not have a significant negative fiscal impact on a state 9 revenue, and then you can resubmit it. Once you have the 10 initial Comptroller sign-off on doing a special hotel tax, 11 then you can call for the election and put on it the next 12 general election date, whether it be May or November. The 13 tax specifies for a venue project, and you have to identify 14 the venue project and the funding mechanism for what you want 15 to do. 16 And the way this works is that when you pay off 17 what you put the tax in to do, the tax goes away, and so it's 18 only for that purpose. It's set aside; it can only be spent 19 for that purpose, but it's not going to be a permanent tax. 20 When you've paid off the venue, as you, you know, said you 21 were going to do, then the tax goes away. And part of the 22 requirements, too, is that if you pass this, once the voters 23 approve it, then the county, within the next year, is 24 required to issue the bonds or start funding going to get the 25 project moving forward. The Comptroller's office ran the 7-12-11 bwk 17 1 numbers, and based upon the sales receipts that they -- they 2 had -- or the hotel receipts, they said that if we had had 3 this special hotel tax in place for fiscal year 2010, at the 4 2 percent maximum, it would have generated $307,116. 5 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Annually? 6 MR. HENNEKE: Annually -- well, last year. And I 7 don't -- I don't have numbers past -- before that, but that 8 gives you an idea of the amount of money that could be 9 available for the entire county, inclusive of the cities of 10 Kerrville and Ingram. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can you do multiple projects 12 under one election? 13 MR. HENNEKE: I don't know. I don't know. It's -- 14 I don't think so, unless the projects are part of the same 15 venue. I mean, if you're looking at multiple phases or 16 multiple buildings within one venue complex, then I think 17 that would be the same project. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hey, Rob? Under -- under 19 the special hotel tax, you're saying that -- that this actual 20 -- you name the actual project, and the people vote to 21 approve or disapprove the tax on a particular project, 22 whether it be ag or whatever, and then when that project is 23 finished, the tax goes away. 24 MR. HENNEKE: Yes, sir. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Closes out. Is it -- is it 7-12-11 bwk 18 1 the same in the assistance district? 2 MR. HENNEKE: No. The county assistance district 3 is a permanent -- 4 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Half-cent. 5 MR. HENNEKE: -- sales tax. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So when you set that up, you 7 don't necessarily identify the project, whether it be 8 economic development or a new jail, or you don't -- they -- 9 when I go -- if it's an assistance program and I go vote, I 10 don't really know exactly what this money's going to go for? 11 MR. HENNEKE: No. And I think the way -- in 12 looking forward, if I were to put it on the ballot, or if I 13 were to pass a resolution right now, my advice would be that 14 it be proposed for all of the purposes that are provided for 15 under the statute that are authorized, which include economic 16 development, law enforcement, so on and so forth. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But the hotel tax gets a 18 little more specific, doesn't it? 19 MR. HENNEKE: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. I like that a lot 21 better. I like people to know what they're -- what they're 22 buying. 23 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: The hotel tax, if we have 24 2 percent, and -- and if it's county-wide, and it deals with 25 also, like, bed and breakfasts and hotels outside the city as 7-12-11 bwk 19 1 well; correct, Rob? Bed and breakfast lodging? 2 MR. HENNEKE: Pay a hotel tax. 3 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: And so I guess right now in 4 the county, you're paying 6 and a half. I think 6 and a half 5 -- it states 6 and half percent, so you're talking about 6 going up to 8 and a half percent. And that's well below the 7 13 that's -- you know, that's inside the city right now. I 8 just know that reviewing back history -- and, Commissioners, 9 you guys know more than I do, but looking at back history, 10 this was looked at in '02 of trying to do a hotel occupancy 11 tax increase. But what I was looking at, it was a 7 percent. 12 It was an across -- a whole jump up, and that was a 13 significant jump up in the hotel occupancy tax. But we're 14 talking 2 percent here, as far as the example that we were 15 looking at. That would generate about 307,000 annually. 16 MR. HENNEKE: Off last year's receipts, and 17 hopefully more as -- 18 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: As time goes on, you could do 19 more if you needed to. 20 MR. HENNEKE: -- more hotels get built and more 21 venues or more events are attracted here. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- kind of a general 23 comment. I like -- I mean, I think for the Ag Barn facility, 24 the hotel tax makes a lot of sense to me as the way to 25 generate revenue there. But I'm also in favor -- we're under 7-12-11 bwk 20 1 pressure almost every year on our tax rate, and I think it is 2 a lot fairer tax for our community to have an increase in 3 sales tax than to increase the property -- I think every time 4 we increase the property tax, we're only targeting certain 5 individuals that are at basically at a certain age group, and 6 they're paying it, and they don't have all these other 7 exemptions. The other thing about the sales tax or hotel 8 tax, a large part of those are being paid by people that are 9 visiting our county, not county residents. I think that's 10 attractive; I'm in favor of putting both of these on the 11 ballot and trying -- 'cause I think that they -- they really 12 will help our budget position down the road. I mean, to me, 13 if the Ag Barn part of it doesn't pass, I don't see how we're 14 coming up with the money for that project. I mean, I just 15 don't see it, at least not from the Commissioners Court. And 16 sales tax, if we can get -- anything we can do to alleviate 17 the pressure that we have on our property tax I think is a 18 positive thing for this county. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I totally agree. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And this is a perfect 21 opportunity to tell you how I feel about ad valorem taxes. 22 The dumbest, most stupid, ignorant thing ever invented. 23 There's nothing -- absolutely nothing fair about that stupid 24 thing. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. 7-12-11 bwk 21 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, anything we can do to 3 offset that with a more fair tax -- 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And I believe both of these 6 are. They do have to be voter-approved. It's not like we 7 can just wave a magic wand and it happens. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You know, but I think that it 10 -- if the voters really think about it, I think they'd rather 11 pay that way and have other people help, rather than just 12 getting hit on their property every year. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rob, what was the figure 14 that you said that would have been generated last year from 15 the special hotel tax? 16 MR. HENNEKE: 307,000. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 307? 18 MR. HENNEKE: 307,116. And the county assistance 19 district would have generated approximately a quarter million 20 if that extra half-cent was there, assessed for all of Kerr 21 County outside of the city limits. These are two options, 22 and they're options to let the voters -- require the voters 23 to choose a certain way, how they want their government -- 24 their services to be funded. I don't think -- I'm learning 25 more about it. With the moving pieces involved in getting 7-12-11 bwk 22 1 the Comptroller's approval, I'm not sure that there is enough 2 time to put a special hotel tax on the November ballot. I 3 think it can be done for May, if the Court is interested in 4 that. The county assistance district goes straight to the 5 ballot, if the Court approves it, and I do believe that 6 there's sufficient time under the Election Code for the Court 7 to put that in front of the voters, if you gentlemen are 8 interested in that. But that was the -- the substance of my 9 meeting. I'm glad to answer any other questions, but very 10 thankful for the Comptroller's office efforts in meeting with 11 me and giving us some options and some choices. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: The venue tax, the instrument of 13 debt, the proceeds from that venue tax could be used to pay 14 interest as well as principal, I assume? 15 MR. HENNEKE: I believe so. I believe you can use 16 that money to leverage whatever you -- you know, whatever you 17 need to that you could serve the debt. And you're required 18 to actually specify in the ballot initiative the mechanism of 19 -- of financing for the project. And it's my understanding 20 that you can actually have multiple options on the ballot, if 21 there's different types of ways of -- of financing that you'd 22 want to have the voters to choose from, or different 23 possibilities. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: It appears to me that it would be 25 tax revenue bonds. Revenue derived from that special tax 7-12-11 bwk 23 1 would be used to amortize the payment of the debt. 2 MR. HENNEKE: And if you actually look on Page 3 of 3 the Comptroller's handout, in the blue box, it talks about 4 election procedures and it talks about having -- if more than 5 one method of financing is included in a single proposition, 6 the ballot must describe each method. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The only -- the only reason 8 I can see right now that I would be negative toward this 9 thing is -- is we ask -- we're asking the public to increase 10 a tax on themselves for stuff and things. And I -- I see as 11 a priority, we would turn around and ask them to do the same 12 thing for the ESD -- for a possible ESD, county-wide ESD. 13 But in your presentation, you mentioned ESD -- or did you -- 14 did you say an ESD could be folded into the assistance 15 district? Or -- 16 MR. HENNEKE: Not folded into, but with the current 17 sales and use tax that we have, and if we did the county 18 assistance district, that would give Kerr County, outside the 19 city limits, a 1 percent sales tax, still leaving 1 percent 20 that could be assessed by an ESD up to the cap, 2 percent. 21 So, if we max out our sales and use tax, and an ESD is 22 created later, that ESD does not have to fund itself entirely 23 from ad valorem taxes. The ESD would still have room to 24 either, you know, fund itself off of just the one-penny sales 25 tax, or do a combination of sales tax and property tax. 7-12-11 bwk 24 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Mm-hmm. Well, if we ask the 2 public to go to the polls twice to vote twice on two 3 different issues, I want the ESD to go first. I mean, I 4 can't imagine asking them to go -- "Well, here's another tax. 5 Y'all go vote on this too." Lord have mercy. Anyway, thank 6 you. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think you could do it all at 8 the same time. 9 MS. HARGIS: Do it all at the same time, but you 10 got to form an ESD. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That means it couldn't be 12 before May. 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Probably not. 14 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Is the -- are you saying, 15 then, the time frame -- I'm just trying to look at the time 16 here. For example, November would be really pushing it as 17 far as what you're thinking, then. I mean, it would be -- 18 the time constraints that we're up against could be really 19 tough. 20 MR. HENNEKE: On the special hotel tax, yes. 21 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. 22 MR. HENNEKE: County assistance district, I think 23 that that could be put on the November ballot. But with the 24 special hotel tax requiring this Court to pass a resolution, 25 then it goes to the Comptroller's office and they have up to 7-12-11 bwk 25 1 30 days to review it and respond. If they respond, then we 2 get another stab. If they say, "No good; try again," you 3 know, then we get to -- to resubmit, and then after the 4 Comptroller has determined that there's no significant 5 negative fiscal state impact, then you can put that on the -- 6 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: May ballot. 7 MR. HENNEKE: Whatever ballot is coming up. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: I'm trying to determine how a local 9 increase in hotel tax would have a negative fiscal impact 10 upon the state of Texas. 11 MR. HENNEKE: I asked Mr. Gallahan from his 12 experience if many of those resolutions had been turned down 13 for that determination, and to his knowledge, that is not 14 common. Maybe it's more of a form requirement than an actual 15 hurdle, but he was not aware of many. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Just a legislative requirement? 17 MR. HENNEKE: It is, but it still takes time. 18 Takes time to send it up to Comptroller Combs and for them to 19 respond pursuant to the statute. 20 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: I think hoteliers and -- and 21 our lodging folks in our community do a wonderful job, but 22 they need to have venues here to help bring in future 23 business. I know that our hotels here locally are -- are 24 experiencing some loss of business because of aging 25 facilities, the lack of venues in our community to be 7-12-11 bwk 26 1 attracted to, and so I know that in the past, it's been an 2 opposition about increasing those taxes. But I think what 3 they need to understand is, in order for their business to 4 move forward and to grow their business, we have to put 5 venues in our communities, and this is an ag-related venue 6 that we have to start looking at getting these projects 7 moving ahead so that these hotels will want to be encouraged 8 to refurbish their places, that they'll have venues from the 9 people that come in the state. So, I know -- I know their 10 opposition. I don't want to have any additional sales tax, 11 but I'm hoping that they'll understand this is what we need 12 to work as a community. If May's the ballot, we need to 13 start to talk about it to educate our community on why it's 14 important to have that, because we have to start starting 15 down the road to have these venues and help these businesses 16 grow, and it's a win for both sides. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But not conventions. Not 18 conventions. 19 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Exhibit center. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, putting those kind of 21 facilities in place, they're a direct beneficiary of that. 22 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: That's right. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Because that draws the heads to put 24 in the beds. 25 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: That's right. 7-12-11 bwk 27 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I just can't imagine, you 2 know, the citizens thinking that it would be a negative tax, 3 the hotel tax, on the people that live here. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't make a habit of going 6 down and getting a motel room, you know, downtown. 7 (Laughter.) 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's talk about something 9 else. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Okay. I know it might be 11 different for you, but... 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, it's not. (Laughter.) 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But, anyway, I just can't 14 imagine that being a negative, because that's going to be 15 almost 100 percent funded by people coming here, and not -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- not local. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: So I'm -- you know, I'm very 20 much in support of that, for sure. And I am the half-cent as 21 well. 22 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. So, last question for 23 the Commissioners Court, then. The direction to E.I.C., the 24 presentation on Monday is to say that, again, the potential 25 use of a -- of a 2 percent hotel tax increase would be the 7-12-11 bwk 28 1 avenue that the county court would look at as far as funding 2 our potential third of this project; is that correct? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think funding -- yeah, I'd 4 say yes. But I would also say that we may also go out and 5 get additional -- 6 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- grant-type funding. We 8 would look at additional sources. 9 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: May or may not be there. I 11 think at this point, we really get with our partners at the 12 Stock Show Association and see if they had -- you know, what 13 they may be able to raise through their -- I mean, their 14 great network of -- you know, they built the facility that's 15 there right now, so I think that they're experienced in 16 fundraising. They haven't done a major project of this type 17 in years, but they still have -- the network's out there. 18 So, I think that that is the other thing that -- you know, to 19 tell E.I.C., is that is another source of funding, from our 20 -- from my standpoint. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, of course, it's all 22 contingent on the voters' approval. 23 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Exactly. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Sure. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But that's why I said I 7-12-11 bwk 29 1 think this is limited to the voters' approval. I think if 2 there's options, you know, such as Stock Show Association, 3 such as other grants, local and nonlocal, to look at it, that 4 we're pursuing those other funding sources as well. 5 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: And one last comment, again; 6 I think the private sector are the folks out there. I think 7 there's a big drive, again, from our community that wants to 8 see, you know, the facility move -- move ahead and to look at 9 those options, and that's an option too, as well, what you're 10 talking about. Okay. Got it. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know that I would go 12 to E.I.C. and say, "Thus sayeth the Commissioners Court," 13 though. I mean, there's not -- 14 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: No, it would just be one of a 15 few that we're looking at. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. You can tell them how 17 Letz feels about it. 18 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. Suggestions. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, exactly. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Options. 21 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: All options, really. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And you can say these are some 23 of the options that we're looking at. 24 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Rob, thank you. He's already 25 gone out. 7-12-11 bwk 30 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He's left. 2 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Thanks, Rob. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. We're not ready to proceed 4 forward on our insurance. My understanding is that we don't 5 have the numbers to submit to the underwriters for 6 evaluation. The only numbers that we have are through the 7 first quarter of this year, which are not anywhere near 8 adequate. My last discussion with Mr. Looney was that he was 9 doing everything except banging people over the head with a 10 stick to try and get them to get current information in a 11 timely -- up-to-date information, so that he could get that. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Beating what folks over the 13 head? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: The Humana people. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Who have -- who have those numbers 17 and maintain the database of the claims and -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: -- and expenditures and so forth. 20 All he has is through the first quarter, so -- 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And where are we with TAC? 22 JUDGE TINLEY: That's why we need that data. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That data -- 24 JUDGE TINLEY: To submit it to TAC so that they can 25 submit it to underwriters to give us a -- a quote, as it 7-12-11 bwk 31 1 were. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're not being held hostage 3 again, are we? 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, right now, apparently we're 5 being held hostage by Humana. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what I mean. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Again, I look at that a little 8 bit that Mr. Looney works for us and works for Humana, kind 9 of. I mean, he's the person who put us together. He works 10 for us. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: He works for us. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But he's the one -- he's our 13 agent, essentially. Not technically an agent, but he's who I 14 go to. If I have a personal insurance problem, I call my 15 agent and I say, "Fix it." I don't know why we can't call -- 16 you know, if Humana wants future business from Mr. Looney, 17 which I suspect they would, I suspect that they would be a 18 little bit more helpful. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I would suspect that he has 20 mentioned to them that their performance on providing us with 21 our own information may be used as a measuring stick of our 22 satisfaction with -- with their administration of this entire 23 process. The one thing he did mention to me was that he -- 24 he might send something up here for -- to go out over my 25 signature, and I said, "Send it on if you think it will 7-12-11 bwk 32 1 help." As of this point, we haven't gotten anything. Which 2 you got to understand, the second quarter that he's asking 3 for is up through June, and that's just a little over 10 days 4 ago those numbers closed out, so it's a little tough to get 5 them that quickly for the quarter. But he assured me he's 6 making every effort that he can to try and get the 7 information. But you're right; we need to get them to TAC. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess my -- a little bit of a 9 -- maybe TAC requires a quarter, but I just know that with 10 computers and technology now, it seems you can go and get up 11 to date at any point in time. May not be all the claims and 12 all the things filed through a certain date, but you ought to 13 be able to get it in real time. Why can't -- 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's just different when 15 you're dealing with a fully-funded insurance plan as opposed 16 to numbers that we had when we had our own self-funded. Real 17 easy to determine. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't see it that way. I see 19 that -- I mean, I just look at from it my own experience in 20 dealing with insurance companies. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does the insurance not 22 release that kind of information? Could that possibly be it? 23 Or -- they would release it to us, wouldn't they? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can we not go and look at 25 what's been spent on every employee that we have? You don't 7-12-11 bwk 33 1 have the access to that? 2 MS. SCHERWITZ: No, sir. 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: No, that's what -- you got 4 fully-funded. Man, that's a totally different animal than 5 what we've been used to. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I guess government is different 7 than private. I can go -- on every one of my employees, I 8 can look up exactly what their insurance expenditures are and 9 claims filed up through yesterday. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Clay, remind me not to go 11 work for him. (Laughter.) 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It seems to me you ought to be 13 able to get that information. And I may not have the -- the 14 claim may not be filed. There's always a risk some of them 15 may not be filed till a month later. You ought to have 16 access to what's been filed through yesterday. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: I've got several phone numbers of 18 Mr. Looney; I'd be glad to let you have them, and you can get 19 the explanation directly from him. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right, fine. I'll be glad 21 to call him. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, what is the holdup? 23 Seriously, what is the holdup now? Mr. Looney -- TAC 24 requires a quarter? 25 MS. HARGIS: Six months. 7-12-11 bwk 34 1 JUDGE TINLEY: They need claims information in 2 order for the underwriters to be able to rate us, as it were, 3 as a risk in order to make a quote for our health benefits 4 plan. And if you recall, as we were dealing even with our 5 self-funded and the coinsurance that we were required to get, 6 we could not get bids for the stop loss insurance, for the 7 excess. We would run up through -- they would want up 8 through October, and we were kind of hung on a hook until the 9 11th hour before we could even get quotes for the -- for the 10 stop loss insurance. And they want the claims information 11 and numbers as current as they can get them. I was surprised 12 when -- when the TAC people told us that they could give us a 13 quote during this budget year, before we started next budget 14 year. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, that surprised me too. 16 It doesn't surprise me that they require that kind of 17 information. I mean, how else would they make a business 18 decision? 19 JUDGE TINLEY: That's how they rate the risk. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: However, I just -- I don't 21 understand why we're not providing that to them. I don't -- 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Humana's got to release it 23 first. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I'm kind of with Jon 25 there. Maybe our -- our guy needs to walk in with a big 7-12-11 bwk 35 1 stick and get it, get the information. Let's file a damn 2 lawsuit. I mean, it's our stuff. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Yep. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We've been held hostage here 5 for five or six years. That needs to end today, in my 6 opinion. We need to get that information and get it to 7 whoever we want to get it to, and get rocking and rolling. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I just think that -- I 9 mean, we do, through our H.R. department/Auditor, kind of -- 10 I'm not sure who's handling it right now. I mean, we have 11 access -- or they have access; I don't have access. I don't 12 want it. But they have access to our health claims. Because 13 they don't -- I mean, for years, when they come to us and 14 they -- you know, don't -- you don't tell us the names, but 15 they've told this whole Court many times, "We have a person 16 that has certain problems," and -- 17 MS. SCHERWITZ: Now that we're a fully-funded plan, 18 H.R. does not have access to employee claims. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: It goes straight in to the 20 administrator. 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's just different. When 22 you're -- I don't have any problem -- you know, I have -- you 23 know, at my age, I don't have a problem with any other claims 24 other than health insurance. I tell you, this has been a 25 nightmare. 7-12-11 bwk 36 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Hard to get good information 3 about anything. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: If you will go to your bound 6 information, we've got a number of items that are included 7 there that I perceive as major components of our budget that 8 I think we probably need to hash or rehash here. The -- the 9 specifics of line items of the various departments have 10 pretty well been scrubbed and checked and annualized and 11 adjusted and so forth. So, what -- what my purpose was was 12 to try and look at some of the -- some of the major items 13 here and give you the benefit of that information, and get 14 your thinking. One of the items, of course, is capital 15 expenditures. We have a total request outstanding now for 16 capital items of 370,000-plus. And you'll note there that 17 there's slightly over a million dollars remaining from the 18 capital fund debt issues that -- that remain available. Road 19 and Bridge was, of course, the largest. There were two dump 20 trucks to include side loaders, as I recall. You've got the 21 detail of those. 22 MS. MABRY: Page 6. 23 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Page 6? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, after the first blue divider. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: This is requests for the 7-12-11 bwk 37 1 upcoming budget? 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Or is this the request for 4 the budget that we're in right now, and that we haven't 5 expended? What is it? 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, they're -- they're budget 7 requests for the coming budget year, but what we're going to 8 be looking to, I strongly believe, is the remaining capital 9 funds that we have. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm with you. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: In-hand from the prior debt issues 12 for capital purposes. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And part of that, in my mind, 14 anyway -- maybe it's still not designated that way, but is 15 for the Ag Barn. Going back to your questions earlier, and 16 have we spent all that was designated originally out of those 17 two debt issues for the Ag Barn? 18 MS. HARGIS: All but 142,000. Actually, if you'll 19 look on Page -- 20 JUDGE TINLEY: 7. 21 MS. HARGIS: -- 9. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We could also allocate some of 23 that for that project. 24 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think -- 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Go to Page 7. 7-12-11 bwk 38 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Maybe I'm wrong again, but I 2 just saw it a while ago. We still have 207 -- 3 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Yeah. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: -- remaining. 5 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Right. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute. What, now? 7 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Page 7. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Got it. 9 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Ag Barn. Capital expansion 10 of Ag Barn, 207, is what it says. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. All right. Now, why 12 are we talking about that? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, it goes back to -- 14 MS. HARGIS: It's unspent. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Guy was mentioning about going 16 to E.I.C. All we're -- we have this already set aside for 17 that, so I thought I'd bring it out that there's -- you know, 18 we talked about the sales tax; we talked about other stuff. 19 There's 207,000 that's sitting in our capital account for 20 that. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 22 MS. HARGIS: The lights have to come out of that. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The lights come out of that 24 too. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 7-12-11 bwk 39 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I think under capital 2 items, there'll be -- looks -- 3 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: It's reasonable, and I'm glad 4 there's funds left to pay for that, so I think that's good. 5 That's what we need. I don't have any problem with those 6 capital items. 7 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I guess the two dump trucks, 8 they're absolutely needed or they wouldn't be on here. 9 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Yeah. 10 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Ms. Kelly, you want to answer 11 that? 12 MS. HOFFER: They're needed. 13 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: The two dump trucks? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: With the side loaders. 15 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: With the side loaders. 16 MS. HOFFER: We've got two old ones right now that 17 are, like, 1982 year model GMC's with the little green 18 flatbeds on them. They've got gas motors in them; gas motors 19 are about worn out. 20 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: 1982? 21 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I just wanted to hear you say 22 it. 23 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: It's getting time, isn't it? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: By clarification, there was another 25 larger list that -- that Road and Bridge brought to us, and 7-12-11 bwk 40 1 including this 184, the larger list was a total of -- 2 MS. HARGIS: It's about 2 million all together. 3 The whole -- the total for the capital stuff, I think, was 4 about 500. Do you -- I didn't bring -- 5 MS. MABRY: 475. 6 MS. HARGIS: 475. 7 MS. MABRY: About 475. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, how much? Y'all are 9 throwing way too many numbers up here. 10 MS. HARGIS: 475,000 was their original number, and 11 then they -- we didn't have enough, so we asked them to back 12 that off and tell us what they actually really needed, and 13 that's what the 184 is. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right. So they really 15 didn't need that -- 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Half million dollars total wish 17 list. 18 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah, but you've got -- 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On capital items, Sheriff, 20 where are you on cars? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have -- I put in capital 22 three Tahoes or three new patrol vehicles to start, and just 23 have the one-year -- first year's lease paid, which is 24 45,000. Now, the mileage we have on those cars, if that's 25 what you want to know? The status currently? 7-12-11 bwk 41 1 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Page 6. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, the information he's 3 fixing to give us is in here? 4 MS. HARGIS: No, sir. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: It's not in here. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Three vehicles? 7 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Page 6? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Three vehicles, which just 9 covers the first year's lease is what that does, right. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 45,000 covers three 11 vehicles' lease? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: One year's lease. One of the 13 three-year -- lease of three vehicles, yes. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just want to make sure that 15 that's -- we weren't getting behind the eight ball again on 16 vehicles. You bought how many two years ago? 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: See, what the issue -- this 18 would help with the first set of Tahoes, which were '08's, 19 and some of them have in excess of 60,000 to 70,000 miles. 20 Now we have the '010's; the highest ones of those have 30,000 21 miles, and we have how many of those now, Clay? 22 MR. BARTON: I'm right here. We should have had, 23 like, 16 -- 16 of those. 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Total of 16. 25 MR. BARTON: 17. 7-12-11 bwk 42 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We'll get behind if we don't 2 start replacing, get back on a lease-type program to at least 3 start rotating out three a year. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're not rotating out some 5 60,000 and 70,000 mile vehicles, are you? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, I have a lot of other 7 vehicles with over 100,000 miles on them. But what I would 8 do is -- is -- and the agreement I made 10 years ago with 9 this Court, if you remember, all new vehicles like that go to 10 patrol. We would rotate out some of the old patrol vehicles 11 into C.I.D., which all of their vehicles have in excess of 12 100,000 miles on them, or at least most of them do, okay. 13 C.I.D. or transport. Warrants guys, a couple of those have 14 over 100,000. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You answered my question, thank 16 you. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This will get us back started. 18 MR. BARTON: Rusty, there's actually 17 '10's. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 17 total? 20 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: 2010's? Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And the jail number is -- 22 that's all those, like, food carts and stuff? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The jail -- the 64,000 I put 24 in jail is -- one is 7,500 for a food cart. Jail control 25 panel replacement; that one is over 15 -- that's 49,800. And 7-12-11 bwk 43 1 then 10 additional cameras for inside the cells. Continuing 2 to get up to speed to meet the PREA act, the federal 3 government act we have to do, which comes to a total of 4 64,230. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Auditor, what are the 6 limitations on the capital funds that will be left after 7 this? And I know we designated -- said that a lot of that 8 was going to be used for certain things. We have to kind of 9 use it for sort of those things. 10 MS. HARGIS: Once you've completed those projects, 11 then it's up to the Commissioners Court to designate how you 12 want to spend those funds. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, some of that funding could 14 be used when we go with a minimum security jail addition? 15 MS. HARGIS: It could, yes, because that's a true 16 capital item. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All right. How much is -- 18 well, what are those -- 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I can get you a better figure. 20 I'll get it before the next Commissioners Court meeting on 21 the 25th. I have that on there; I intend to have it as an 22 agenda item, and at least see what it costs to -- I think it 23 was Bastrop, if I remember, that built a couple within the 24 last year. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: How long can we carry these 7-12-11 bwk 44 1 funds forward? 2 MS. HARGIS: We're supposed to clear them out by 3 the time -- five years is the max. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Five years? We have three 5 years. 6 MS. HARGIS: The '08 issue, we're looking at two 7 years, basically. And then the 2010, we got -- we can go to 8 2015. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Just to let you know, 11 Jonathan, we had 29 females staying this morning, with two 12 more coming in from other counties that were being 13 transported back that will be there this afternoon, so that 14 will put us at 31 that will be staying. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Says the sheriff who doesn't want a 16 jail. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The sheriff doesn't want a 18 jail, but I may not have a choice, Your Honor. I also don't 19 want to end up in federal court. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: You don't want to be in jail, is 21 what you're saying? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions on the capital? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, sir. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come back to the first 7-12-11 bwk 45 1 page, or actually Page 2. We've got two different areas on 2 salaries. One is a grocery list of specific salary change 3 requests, which total -- they run those up by fund, and the 4 total is 61,000. There's a separate list later on in this 5 bound presentation. The second one deals with changing -- 6 deleting Grade 14 and going to 15 as the minimum. Now, if -- 7 essentially, what that does is it does not go from, say, 14-4 8 to 15-4. It goes from 14-4 to 15-3. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 3? Why not 1? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: If you go -- pardon? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why not -- why not start at 12 the 1? 13 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if you start at the 1, if you 14 take a 14-4 and start at the 1, you're going to end up giving 15 them a 2 and a half percent salary decrease. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And so when was it we 17 started moving from -- we started out with a 12 and moved to 18 -- moved the 12 to the 13? Three years ago? 19 MS. HARGIS: They were 14's when I got here in -- 20 in '07. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Was it really? 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But we have been steadily 24 moving everything up. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 7-12-11 bwk 46 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We have to admit that. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: And moving the 14's to 15's, in 3 doing that, included within that is a -- what's equivalent of 4 a one-step increase or two and a half percent. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see what you're saying. I 6 just don't see it here, and don't know how those numbers play 7 out. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: And there's your total number down 9 there, 56,659. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What about -- what happens to 11 the -- I guess the overall roll-up of pushing everybody up by 12 doing -- what I'm saying is, say you have some -- everyone's 13 got job responsibilities. They're taking 14's up to 15's, 14 and while we're going to a -- 14-4 to a 15-3, at some point 15 that -- when that person leaves or goes to a different job, 16 that's all of a sudden level 15, and we're at 15-1, then, and 17 it's -- but we're slowly bumping that up. And then all of a 18 sudden, you're going to -- it seems that you -- if you only 19 do the 14's to 15's, at some point you're going to get a 20 problem between the -- the 15's and the 16's, and the 16's 21 and the 17's. And -- 22 JUDGE TINLEY: Probably in time you'll -- you'll 23 get there, yeah. 24 MS. HARGIS: Not for a while. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And it just seems that you kind 7-12-11 bwk 47 1 of -- I think where Buster's going a little bit, you keep on 2 -- where do you stop? It's kind of like -- 3 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Where do you get -- 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're sitting right where I'm 5 looking at you. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You're going to use me? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. Between the chief 8 deputy, sitting over here where I can see him, and the 9 Sheriff right over here, there's also that -- every year we 10 give Rusty a raise -- or if we give him a raise, we got to 11 give him a raise, and back and forth, because you can't have 12 -- that same argument comes on, and we start getting into a 13 situation where we just have to continually increase 14 salaries. Which is great, but we also should be increasing 15 responsibilities at the same time. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you got -- the last component 17 there down at the bottom of that same page is your reduction 18 in staffing levels. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the trade-off. That's how 21 you get there. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And these are positions that 23 you -- you see that aren't going to be filled? 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Those are open right now. Those are 25 open right now. Now, the Fund 15, we've already accounted 7-12-11 bwk 48 1 for the one that we authorized to be filled yesterday, so 2 that's one remaining there. 3 MS. HARGIS: Page 18. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Road and Bridge. 5 MS. HARGIS: Page 18. Page 18. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 7 MS. HARGIS: Did you hear me, Bruce? 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is it Page 18? 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 10 MS. HARGIS: Well, my voice doesn't carry. I 11 apologize. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Back on this 14/15 thing, if 13 they're at 15 -- I can't remember now. But 15-4, they're -- 14 I'm sorry, 14-4, they're going to come in as a 15-3? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: That's correct. 16 MS. HARGIS: Right. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But if it's a new hire, 18 though, they come in at 15-1. 19 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: New hire. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: We're dealing with existing 22 employees. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I understand. But the new 24 hire starts -- always starts at the 1, per the policy. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: The same rules we got in place. 7-12-11 bwk 49 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: All right. 2 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Well, I think another 3 question that needs to be asked, I think Jonathan was kind of 4 touching on it, but you move this certain number of people 5 from the -- from the 14-4 to the 15-3. Well, then, what 6 about all the other people, the rest of the employees? What 7 happens to them? Do you just move up the ones -- 8 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: At the lower levels. 9 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 14's to 15's, but then do you 10 not do anything else beyond that? I mean, I'm just -- I'm 11 just making a statement. I'm not asking -- 12 JUDGE TINLEY: That's not -- there's not a general 13 proposal to float everybody up one grade and back them off 14 one step. That's not a general -- what we're trying to do is 15 eliminate that lowest compensation level. I don't know what 16 the -- what the current level is for public assistance, but I 17 strongly suspect that we're getting reasonably close to it, 18 if we're not already there in our 14's. 19 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: And I'm trying to float the bottom a 21 little bit. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I understand. And it's hard 23 to do that and not do some additional, because basically what 24 happens, you've got some lower paid people getting a little 25 bit of an increase, which is not a whole lot of money, but 7-12-11 bwk 50 1 then leave everything else alone? Or at that point, do you 2 raise everybody in addition? That's a question that we're 3 going to have to answer sometime through the process. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Do you move everybody up and 6 then give everybody a raise? Or do you -- I mean, it gets 7 more out of whack if you just move them up and then move 8 everybody else -- you can't get that balance. 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I tried to keep it as -- as 10 identifiable as possible. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Right. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: And there's even going to be some, 13 for example, that -- that -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Suppose you had somebody at a 15 14-1. It's hard to raise them to a 15 minus one. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: So some of those folks at the very, 18 very bottom of the totem pole are going to end up with 19 effectively a two-step. There won't be very many, I don't 20 think. 21 MS. HARGIS: No, there's about two or three, maybe. 22 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yeah. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: But that's just the nature of the 24 beast when you're trying to keep things on a schedule. I can 25 remember here a few years ago, we -- we had a situation where 7-12-11 bwk 51 1 we got outside the step and grade, and we ended up having to 2 recalculate the whole thing, and it was an absolute 3 nightmare. 4 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I understand staying inside 5 the step and grade. Don't be monkeying with a half -- with a 6 1 percent raise. That's not -- that screws up everything. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's go to Page 18. 8 Explain that to me a little bit. I see the descriptions, the 9 department and salary and the FICA and retirement, the 10 insurance. What is the very last one, total? 11 MS. MABRY: Yes. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 13 MS. HARGIS: Total. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's "TTL," isn't it? 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Tax, title, and license? 16 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: That's an all. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: That's the true cost when you 18 include the roll-ups that go with it, payroll taxes and 19 insurance. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So if we had an H.R. 21 director, that person would be making 90 grand a year? I 22 move we don't have one. That was a joke. Didn't go over 23 very well. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is the clerk -- the records 25 management clerk, is that out of the County Clerk's office? 7-12-11 bwk 52 1 JUDGE TINLEY: Yes. 2 MR. TROLINGER: The Sheriff would like to say 3 something. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: No, really? 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Get you a stool, Rusty. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: On your position -- on the 7 open positions, I think it will show in there somewhere where 8 the Sheriff's Office has five -- 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- open positions. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sheriff and the jail. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. It's three 13 investigators, a jailer, and a jail clerk. In the meetings 14 I've had with my personnel and Jail Administrator and them, 15 the jail clerk is a position that they truly feel they need. 16 The other positions -- and one that I think it's been talked 17 about off and on over the last few years, that I think we're 18 at the point -- Judge Tinley may understand why -- is another 19 civil deputy position. A civil process -- we're getting out 20 of -- you know, snowed under with that. What I would like to 21 propose out of those five positions is give me a civil deputy 22 out of that, which is a regular deputy sheriff's pay, and a 23 clerk back in the jail, and then you can alleviate out of my 24 position schedule the remaining three positions. Which 25 either way, even in future budgets, that's giving the county 7-12-11 bwk 53 1 back quite a bit, 'cause those positions would not even come 2 near what the investigating officers we're paying. But 3 that's kind of where we're at in -- in positioning and trying 4 to restructure. Not only did we alleviate -- or not fill 5 those five positions; I also restructured, and in that 6 restructuring changed a lieutenant position this year to a 7 sergeant position, which that person did have to take a pay 8 cut from that. But just on restructuring, trying to change 9 all this around, that would be my request with the Court in 10 reference to the five open positions in this next budget, 11 what has been turned in, or at least that we had turned in is 12 those five positions are still budgeted, okay, in this next 13 budget. What I'm saying is cut those positions out. Go 14 ahead and alleviate them at that time. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Let me go to Page 18, then, and look 16 at those. You've got a jail clerk that you want to delete 17 from the open position list? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, I got a jail clerk I would 19 like to fill. Delete it from the open so that I can fill it, 20 yes. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, okay. And then I'm showing a 22 jail cook. You want to surrender that one? 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. It's not really a cook; 24 that's where it was left. There are no cooks any more; it's 25 all jailers since we contract out, but eliminate that 7-12-11 bwk 54 1 position. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Then we got three CID 3 positions. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Eliminate two of those, and 5 turn the third one into a deputy position who would be a 6 civil deputy. 7 MS. HARGIS: Beginning salary is 39 on a deputy. 8 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Okay. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And then it would -- depending 10 on if he already had the educational and longevity and that. 11 Actually, normal beginning is 39, but either way, the 12 investigators were up around 50-something, 49, 50 on those 13 two that we didn't do, but that was starting. 14 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So it was over 50 on each of 16 those three. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: So there would be a net of three 18 positions, and the one that you would get back for the one 19 that you're surrendering would be probably 10 grand plus the 20 roll-ups below -- 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What we were. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: -- what you're substituting for. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's correct. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, on the -- I'm glad we 25 brought this topic up on the position schedule and all this. 7-12-11 bwk 55 1 I'd like to look at that a little bit more before we make any 2 definitive -- 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I understand. I'm just 4 wanting to get these things out on the table, 'cause I see 5 them as some major items that we're going to have to make a 6 decision on. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The -- on Page 18, the last 9 -- the last one on that list. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's -- that's a done 12 deal. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Road maintenance? 14 JUDGE TINLEY: No. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: D.P.S.? 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Everybody understands 18 that that's a -- what's going on there. I'm a little bit 19 confused, Judge. I know a good politician never says they're 20 confused, but I'm not completely understanding what I'm 21 hearing here from Rusty. Now, did he -- I'm thinking that 22 this is a list here of things that have been done prior to 23 today, and -- and why didn't he -- in his budget requests, 24 why didn't he already request those things that he just did? 25 JUDGE TINLEY: I think all of those people are in 7-12-11 bwk 56 1 the current budget request. So -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All 13. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 4 MS. MABRY: That spreadsheet is in the budget, 5 except for that last one that Buster mentioned a moment ago. 6 That one had been removed. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So all of these people are 8 in? 9 MS. MABRY: Yes. 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 12 MS. MABRY: Except for that last one that you 13 talked about. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And -- okay. Okay, I see. 15 Thank you. 16 MS. HARGIS: All these positions are currently in 17 the budget awaiting your decisions. We -- 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, if we took out all 13 19 positions, you would reduce the budget by $684,000. 20 MS. HARGIS: That's right. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Exactly right. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You are getting good at this 23 stuff. (Laughter.) 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 25 MS. HARGIS: If you'll look at the -- at Page 19 7-12-11 bwk 57 1 and 20, those are -- it's a list of -- beginning at the 2 current fiscal year, of the people that were hired, the 3 openings and closings, and those match the positions on Page 4 18. But you can see the people that have come and gone on 5 Page 19 and 20. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: On that point, I'd like to -- 7 most of the elected officials are here. I'd like to thank 8 all department heads and elected officials, because that was 9 our goal last September, when we really got under this part 10 of it, I think, was to reduce employment by 10. And we -- or 11 you all did that by not filling vacancies when people left 12 through attrition. And I appreciate it, because that's the 13 only way we can, you know, get to what appears to be a little 14 bit better situation than it was last year. We're still not 15 out of the woods yet, in my mind, but it's -- we'd be a whole 16 lot worse off if we weren't able to do that during the year. 17 MS. HARGIS: I think there are some elected 18 officials and department heads that want to make some changes 19 within what they already have, if -- if the Judge would allow 20 those to present them. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: That's Page 14? 22 MS. HARGIS: There's some additional ones. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: If you'll turn to Page 2 of your 24 summary, that's the first category under step and grade 25 salary change requests. All of those rolled up come to that 7-12-11 bwk 58 1 figure there, 61,000. But the itemization of them is -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Page 14, you said? 3 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 4 MS. MABRY: Yes. 5 MS. HARGIS: And we do have -- 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 7 MS. HARGIS: We have a change from Animal Control 8 that was not on here that she wants to present, Judge. And 9 she has it spelled out in -- Janie? 10 JUDGE TINLEY: It's in her budget request? 11 MS. HARGIS: It's in our budget request, and she's 12 got a printout of what she wants to do. It's really not 13 going to make much difference. She's just kind of moving 14 folks around. 15 MS. WHITT: Basically, what I'd like to do is, I 16 have one ACO position open. I currently have my kennel 17 worker, who is certified as an ACO. I would like to move in 18 the kennel worker into the open -- to the open ACO position. 19 And, of course, she's a 14, so if -- depending on what y'all 20 decide to do on the 14's, then we'd have to move her. And 21 then, as you can see there -- and there's explanations on 22 each employees's -- under each employee's name. Basically, 23 move Oscar from a 15-2 to a 15-3, so that I could keep him in 24 line with Ms. Fegenbush, who is a certified officer, and she 25 just received her euthanasia certification. So, I'd like to 7-12-11 bwk 59 1 move her from the 14-3 to a 15-3, if -- depending on what 2 y'all decide. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This -- this is a good example 4 of the concern, I think, that Bruce and I had, that we're 5 taking a kennel worker who is a 14, moving them to a 15. 6 Well, that means that the kennel worker's now the same as an 7 ACO. So, does that mean we're going to want to move the 8 ACO's up to 16's? Because it should be -- I mean, you should 9 get paid a little bit more for your -- so -- and you're going 10 to have basically a kennel worker and ACO starting at 15-1's 11 from now on. 12 MS. WHITT: Right. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And that's where you end up 14 with a -- a problem. And I think I support moving them up, 15 but we can only afford to move up so much. 16 MS. WHITT: Right. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: All of a sudden, you're 18 having -- then you're going to get, you know, a new ACO -- a 19 new, you know, control officer being paid less than a kennel 20 worker. As soon as you get up -- you know, a two-year -- or 21 three-year kennel worker and a one-year ACO, you're going to 22 have kennel workers -- because you get an automatic increase 23 after three years. That's where, all of a sudden, the 24 problem comes in. The -- 25 MS. HARGIS: That's why we had to do this today, 7-12-11 bwk 60 1 because we had this kind of a problem going on. 2 MS. WHITT: Right. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: This makes it easier to 4 explain. Thank you. 5 MS. HARGIS: I think I have -- Linda has one. I 6 don't know if anyone else has one. Most of their changes, if 7 you requested it in your budget, it's on this list. 8 MS. UECKER: No, I just did that. 9 MS. HARGIS: Okay. So, Linda has a -- 10 MS. UECKER: They got it. 11 MS. HARGIS: They got it. Okay, you have hers. 12 Anybody else have one? 13 MR. HENNEKE: I don't know if this is the right 14 time or not, but I haven't had a chance to speak to y'all in 15 about 30 minutes, so... (Laughter.) I've got an employee who 16 is at the max of their grade, and under the current policy, 17 as I understand it, you don't get longevity once you hit the 18 maximum grade. But I think the -- the typical procedure, as 19 I understand it, in some instances, has been then to promote 20 the person to the next step. And there's been a lot of 21 discussion on the Court about that, getting positions out of 22 -- out of whack as far as classification of what the duties 23 are versus what a person is on the payroll schedule. I think 24 that ought to be relooked at. I think that if you are 25 classified as a certain step and you max out the grade, and 7-12-11 bwk 61 1 you continue to perform and serve for Kerr County, if you get 2 promoted to a higher step, then that's great, but if you 3 don't, or until you don't, then, you know, if you become 4 eligible for longevity every three years under the standard 5 policy of -- of Kerr County, then I would think that you 6 should be able to get that longevity pay added to your step 7 and grade. If that's not of interest, then I'm looking at 8 having an employee that last year would have been eligible 9 for a longevity increase, but was -- was capped out. And 10 given the budget situation that we were in last year, I 11 didn't make any -- any pitch for increase to a step or grade, 12 but I have that situation. I think it's fair for the 13 employee to get longevity every three years, as is the 14 standard policy, and would like to do that, but I wanted to 15 put that issue out there for -- for discussion. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the -- I mean, 17 obviously, if we did -- did that, it's a county-wide policy 18 change. Any idea what the budget impact is? 19 MS. HARGIS: No. I'm -- I really don't. I know we 20 have one or two others. 21 MS. MABRY: Yeah, there aren't very many. 22 MS. HARGIS: There's not very many. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: How many you got, Sheriff? 24 MS. BOLIN: I think we have two. 25 MS. HARGIS: The Sheriff's Department has one -- 7-12-11 bwk 62 1 two. He has one. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Two, two, one. 3 MS. HARGIS: We'd have to look it up. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Originally, that was -- that 5 was set that way because it would equal what would work out 6 to be about a 20-year career without the merits and that. 7 And then what was decided after that was if you got a 8 cost-of-living and COLA increase, those people were still 9 entitled to that COLA, 'cause that moved everything up. But 10 even the state -- on state employees, they hit a max of -- of 11 longevity and that on theirs, and that's what was agreed to 12 years ago when all this was reworked. 13 MR. HENNEKE: And I think -- I can't speak back too 14 far, but I think what's happened is that to get around that, 15 you've got sometimes folks who have been moved up to the next 16 step to then give them more room to go up. And if that's the 17 way that I need to approach it to be consistent with policy, 18 I think it causes the issue that we've discussed before, of 19 employees being out of whack as far as classification. But 20 I'm trying to take care of the workers in the County 21 Attorney's office, and wanted to address this issue with 22 y'all. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Sometimes you start an employee -- 24 because of educational qualifications, experience, whatever, 25 you start them at something other than Step 1. If you start 7-12-11 bwk 63 1 them at a Step 4, why, they're going to end up at the end of 2 the rope a whole lot sooner than what you anticipated, and so 3 there's got to be something that's thought to be equitable, I 4 would think, to keep them -- Ms. Scherwitz, you had 5 something? 6 MS. SCHERWITZ: Well, you touched on one of the 7 points. I'm for anybody getting a raise, but if you start 8 doing that and pulling them off the step and grade, you have 9 an issue. If you start changing them and promoting them, 10 then have you issues. So, that was just a reminder to you. 11 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, the only way to -- to do it 12 logically, in my mind, at least off the top of my head, would 13 be if you've got a 15 that's, say, a 15-10 -- don't they quit 14 at 10? 15 MR. HENNEKE: 12. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: 12? Okay. You would go to a 16 and 17 back off one, and that would give them a two and a half. 18 MS. SCHERWITZ: As long as it's notated somewhere, 19 if you choose, that when the new hire comes in after that 20 person leaves or retires -- 21 JUDGE TINLEY: It's still a Step 15. 22 MS. SCHERWITZ: Correct. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. And you'd annotate it, 24 that -- that it went to a Grade 15 for longevity purposes 25 only, for example. 7-12-11 bwk 64 1 MS. SCHERWITZ: Correct. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Or for educational certifications 3 only. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Actually, Your Honor, the way 5 that was set up was, because of the number of educational 6 steps you could get, okay -- you know, and it took it with 7 officers and that, and I think you gave the other ones to 8 Road and Bridge. There was only a certain number of steps 9 you could get, and with those steps and longevity increases 10 included, regardless of whether you got those steps at the 11 very first year you went to work and got longevity after 12 that, after a 20-year career, you would be at that 12. 13 That's the way it was set up. And the way it was set up for 14 law enforcement and that is we were not entitled -- law 15 enforcement was not entitled to the merit increases, where 16 the other department heads could give a couple of those merit 17 increases to make up for that over that 20-year period, so 18 all employees would end up with a 20-year career at that Step 19 12. Now, if the Court went out of that and -- and started 20 them at a different grade, regardless of what's, you know, 21 educational or -- or longevity, and started them at a 15-6 or 22 whatever, starting out, yeah, you can probably get out of 23 whack. But under the -- under the way it was set up, 24 regardless of whether they were law enforcement, courthouse, 25 or anything else, after a 20-year career, though, they would 7-12-11 bwk 65 1 end up at that 12, and that's the way -- and after that, it 2 was frozen excepts for COLA's. And that's the way it was 3 designed back when we started. That -- which was equitable 4 to everybody involved then. 5 JUDGE TINLEY: I'll be sure and let those two 6 officers in your department -- 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They know it. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: -- know that. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They know it. They know how I 10 feel. They have been frozen for -- they have been frozen for 11 a number of years at that 12. Lee Behrens has been frozen 12 for about five years now at that 12, 'cause that's the way 13 the system is, and it was what was adopted by the Court back 14 then. 15 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I see it as a fair decision, 16 frankly. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I don't mean -- if they get a 18 raise, y'all want to change it, that's fine. I'm just saying 19 that's the way it was set up. 20 MR. HENNEKE: Well, I would request, then, from -- 21 for the County Attorney's office employee that was maxed out 22 last year -- or was eligible for longevity last year, but was 23 maxed out, that either there be the longevity at his current 24 step and grade, or that he be adjusted to the next step and 25 grade to account for what that would -- I don't know how to 7-12-11 bwk 66 1 explain it, but that would be -- 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm not -- the only issue I 3 have, then, is that, yes, it's going to -- just like you're 4 talking about moving the 14's to 15's, then if you start 5 that, you're going to have to look at fair and equitable, 6 like the ones of mine that's been frozen five years 7 because -- because that's the policy that was adopted. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is it -- if we're going to do 9 that, isn't it easier to go up to -- to, like, a 15-13? 10 Instead of stopping at 12 -- 15-12, go to 15-13, so at least 11 you keep at the right level. I can see, boy, it getting 12 really bad all of a sudden. You're really a 15, but we're 13 going to pay you as a 16. I mean, that doesn't -- 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Your -- you can increase the steps, 15 sure. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That seems a whole lot -- if 17 you're going to do it, -- 18 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Makes sense. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- that's a lot easier to do. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 14, 15 steps in those grades. 21 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: That makes sense. 22 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Keep the same duties, the same 24 rules; you just keep it longer. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't expect anybody to 7-12-11 bwk 67 1 remember what happened -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And all of a sudden, "No, that 3 was a 16." Okay. 4 MR. HENNEKE: However, it does -- 5 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I've got a 16-5 approved 6 here, but it's really going to be a 15-1. I don't think so, 7 you know. 8 MS. HARGIS: Well, a lot of people are staying 20 9 to 25 years, so if the schedule's based on 20 years, we could 10 base the schedule on 25. And that way, if a person started 11 with education and started at a Step 5, they still would end 12 up with at least 20 years of getting longevity. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think one of the -- I mean, 14 we have tried -- 15 MS. HARGIS: You have a bunch of people that are 16 going to go over. We only have five right now, but what I'm 17 going through here, I see a whole lots of 11's. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't think we want to 19 discourage people from staying, because they've got a great 20 deal of training and experience and institutional knowledge. 21 I think our focus ought to be retaining as many people -- 22 MS. HARGIS: That's why I said expand the schedule 23 to 25 years instead of 20 years. 24 JUDGE TINLEY: Actually, if you go three more 25 steps, that gets you -- 7-12-11 bwk 68 1 MS. HARGIS: It's 26 years. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: -- nine more years. 3 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, nine more years. That's right. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Three steps, nine more years. 5 Two would be six. 6 JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm. 7 MS. HARGIS: Whatever you want to do; you just have 8 to tell us. But we're going to have to -- 9 JUDGE TINLEY: Either way, you get the same result. 10 MS. HARGIS: Right. Well, I mean, just give us 11 what you want. 12 MR. HENNEKE: I appreciate y'all's consideration 13 for that. 14 MS. HARGIS: But we do have a lot of folks that are 15 staying with us that are -- that are good folks, and some of 16 them are young, and they're going to be here a long time. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't think they should be 18 penalized 'cause they hang around a long time. 19 MS. HARGIS: No. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: Assuming we want them to hang 21 around. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's not get personal. 23 JUDGE TINLEY: Buster, have you -- 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That sounds like a separate 25 agenda item to me. 7-12-11 bwk 69 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I see our District Clerk moving 2 to the podium. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Just to give you an example of 4 what you're talking about, we have 24 officers in the 5 Sheriff's Office that are due longevity, and 11 in the jail 6 this year. They are staying a lot longer. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Sheriff, I attribute that to 8 what we started back in 2003, trying to build a parity, 9 because of that high turnover rate. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I agree, exactly. We went up 11 greatly in salaries, and that did make a large difference. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was good. That's a 13 good memory. Do you have any other childhood memories? 14 That's 2003. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And that's why this is 16 important. Our parity's starting to go -- Kendall's up 17 above, and a lot of them are starting to go up above. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Kendall? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Kendall. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When did that get in this 21 picture? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: He brought it up; I didn't 23 bring it up. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Comfort. 25 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's just moved up the road 7-12-11 bwk 70 1 from Bexar County. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Jonathan's been probably over 3 there helping them. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What do you have for us in 90 5 seconds, Ms. Uecker? 6 MS. UECKER: 90 seconds? Well, I have a couple of 7 things. And I know I would rather remove my toenail with a 8 rusty fork than ask for additional staff, but based on -- you 9 know, even what the Sheriff said about needing another civil 10 deputy, guess where all that stuff's coming from? And I know 11 you don't like -- 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you get rid of Linda, will 13 it slow down? (Laughter.) 14 MS. UECKER: But, you know, the economy has had a 15 huge impact on our business. And I wish it didn't, but it 16 does. And the -- and I know you don't like that great big 17 handout I gave you, but I thought that maybe you might 18 actually enjoy seeing some of the statistics and some of the 19 stuff and read it -- you know, read it later. I don't know. 20 It was done on recycled paper. (Laughter.) So -- 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hey, Linda, let me ask you a 22 question. It's something that really intrigues me. 23 MS. UECKER: Okay. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's just really 25 interesting. When the clerk was in last -- two weeks ago, 7-12-11 bwk 71 1 whenever it was, doing their thing, they talked about that 2 there -- I think they talked about their workload being 3 reduced. 4 MS. UECKER: Right. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I -- 6 MS. UECKER: Because of the economy. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Because of the economy. 8 That's exactly right, mm-hmm. And I can see that. And then 9 -- but your workload as a District Clerk has increased. Now, 10 how does -- tell me how that works. 11 MS. UECKER: Well -- 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's interesting. 13 MS. UECKER: That works because there's a lot more 14 people suing each other because of the economy. There's more 15 people committing crimes, some of them because they're just 16 trying to, you know, keep their bills paid, or whatever 17 they're trying to buy. There's a lot more divorces, a lot 18 more family violence cases. There's a lot more juries. In 19 one of these, I even have the jury calendars that shows the 20 increase in all of the juries that we're pulling. And -- you 21 know, and for an example on the criminal, we used to have 22 just a couple of documents come in a day, you know, on -- on 23 the criminal stuff, and once a -- once a week in addition to 24 the court and the warrants and all of that stuff, process 25 notices. But that stack is this big that comes in from the 7-12-11 bwk 72 1 judges and the Sheriff every day. Every day. And what used 2 to take, you know, one person part of the time -- because the 3 civil was really the heavy load. It's now taking two 4 full-time people, and as many as three in the courtroom. As 5 you'll see by the dockets, I made some dockets of just a 6 couple of days. I mean, there -- those are 10 pages of, you 7 know, half a day here, and then that clerk has to pack up and 8 head to the jail. And it's -- it's just amazing. And you 9 can see by the second page, the difference in the numbers. 10 For instance, last year's numbers in -- well, in 2009, in 11 civil, we had 830. Then the following year went to 1,363, 12 and this year so far -- we're still three months to that same 13 comparison -- we're at 988. We're just way up. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Almost double. 15 MS. UECKER: Yeah. And it's -- and it's the 16 economy, unfortunately. It has the same effect. And that's 17 why the jail is fuller, because -- and if you'll notice, 18 though, on the criminal fees, that's down actually a little 19 bit, because these people are not able to pay those fines and 20 costs, so Rusty has to deal with them. And -- and on the 21 civil fees collected in 2009, we had 288,000. The following 22 year, we had 1 million, 919. Of course, that includes the 23 court registry fees, but we still have to -- like those 24 condemnation cases, but we still have to deal with that 25 money, and that's a huge liability, 'cause we're holding 7-12-11 bwk 73 1 funds for investment until the -- that case is over with. 2 There's a picture of one case in there that's 13 -- 13 boxes. 3 Of course, y'all know it as the Mystic case. What has 4 happened, it's -- half of it -- the Judge ruled on a motion 5 for new trial on half it, and the other half is being 6 appealed. Huge nightmare. The other -- the pending part, 7 they're filing a motion to transfer to McCulloch County. I 8 mean, so the whole case is going to have to be appealed, and 9 the whole case is going to have to be sent. That'll take 10 probably three people a week to perform either one of those 11 duties. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And the other thing y'all have 13 coming up is you have a Menard murder case that got a change 14 of venue to Kerr County, and you have a Del Rio capital 15 murder case that got a change of venue to Kerr County. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But they still pay for it. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They still -- but it's 18 still -- they reimburse. It's still the paperwork, the 19 employees, all that you're still stuck with no matter what. 20 MS. UECKER: And, you know, I put together some 21 lists of all the documents that come in on the civil, on the 22 criminal. That doesn't even include what comes across the 23 counter for lawyers or in the mail. You know, and I've asked 24 the Post Office this several times, and they unequivocally 25 say, by far, the District Clerk's Office receives and 7-12-11 bwk 74 1 distributes more mail annually than anybody else, including 2 the mass mailings that the Tax Office does several times a 3 year. By far. And, anyway, I -- I'm hoping that y'all will 4 allow me to at least, you know, put on somebody halftime, 5 someone that can help with the criminal in the courtroom, 6 maybe go to the jail, maybe process the indictments. We used 7 to have a couple of indictments, maybe 10 every grand jury. 8 That's up to, like, 40 and 50 every time. Some of those 9 indictments have as many as 100 counts. Why they've decided 10 to do it that way instead of individual cases, I don't know, 11 but they have to be processed as individual cases, separate 12 warrants, separate everything. And I've got -- you know, 13 judges are starting to complain because stuff isn't getting 14 issued on time. Notices aren't getting out. You know, we're 15 doing -- you know, working some over -- we got a jury going 16 right now; got another one starting next week. Had another 17 one this week. Fortunately, it canceled. But we're just 18 having to do a lot more jury trials. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: A lot longer jury trials, too. 20 MS. UECKER: Yeah, we have. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: It's the nature of the litigation 22 beast; they just get more technical and take a lot longer. 23 MS. UECKER: Yeah. Well, and just like, you know, 24 the cases -- they're much more involved. I mean, the cases 25 aren't just like this. They're -- our cases are in boxes. 7-12-11 bwk 75 1 They're not in files hardly any more; they're in boxes. So, 2 you know, I -- like I've told the Judge for years, you know, 3 I'd rather not put on any more staff, but we have to perform 4 the duties that we're required to do. And the other point 5 is -- and I'm not real passionate about this, but the 6 question's been asked, you know, before, you know, how come 7 the District Clerk has 15's and no 14's? How did you get 8 those raises? Well, as you recall -- some of you might not 9 recall. Buster might. You know, years ago, we spent 10 thousands of dollars on the Nash study. And -- 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I was here. 12 MS. UECKER: Yeah, you were here, exactly. And, 13 you know, that's the step and grade system we're using right 14 now. And the reason that the District Clerk's Office was -- 15 the starting salary was one step higher is because Rex 16 whats-his-name -- Hall? Rex Hall, who I didn't even really 17 care for, but, you know -- (Laughter.) You know, he said the 18 reason that that is is because the duties that we perform in 19 the District Clerk's Office creates a greater liability. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, the liability. 21 MS. UECKER: Because, you know -- for example, you 22 know, a capital murder versus a theft by check, a $6 million 23 lawsuit versus a $6,000 lawsuit, a warranty deed versus an 24 order of sale and an execution. Those all -- and we have to 25 hold that money; we have to distribute it. We have to 7-12-11 bwk 76 1 escheat that stuff to the state. And we do have all the 2 lawsuits now. But, I mean that hasn't created that 3 additional burden. It's just that extra filing. But that's 4 why that has happened the way it did. And I thought 5 everybody knew that, but I just wanted to remind you that 6 that's why that was like that was. And -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's why I bring up the same 8 thing; that at one point, whether we like the Nash study or 9 not, it did have everyone classified based on 10 responsibilities, liability, money they were handling, all 11 that stuff. 12 MS. UECKER: Well, and the other -- in addition to 13 that -- 14 MS. PIEPER: The liability's the same whether it's 15 $60,000 or $1,000. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, it's -- it was all -- 17 MS. UECKER: Depends on how -- you know, if the 18 lawsuit's going to be for whatever the amount of the suit is. 19 And, you know, the other thing is, you know, we've been -- 20 we've had people threaten to kill us because of a decision 21 that the judge made on these family violence cases. 22 Divorces -- if I ever die in the courthouse, it'll be by, you 23 know, someone in a family lawsuit. And that has actually 24 happened in some states. I don't think Texas. 25 JUDGE TINLEY: Your warning to us is that you're 7-12-11 bwk 77 1 not going to hang around so long that you'll just fall over 2 from old age? 3 MS. UECKER: No. No. And like I said, I'm not 4 passionate; I'm not -- that's not to put you down or 5 anything. But I'm just -- that's just the fact that's what 6 the Nash study said. So -- 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I do think she's right on 8 -- on the violence. I don't know if y'all know this or not, 9 but yesterday they had an officer-involved shooting in one of 10 the counties in our district over a family violence. 11 MS. UECKER: Even one of the bailiffs came to me 12 yesterday -- he didn't know anything about this; I said 13 nothing to him. He said, "Linda, I don't know what you're 14 going to do, but you're going to have to get some help up 15 here." And if the bailiffs notice it -- you know, he didn't 16 even know that I was actually coming today to do this. 17 JUDGE TINLEY: Make him a budget officer. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I remember the time that -- 19 Linda, I remember the time that we wanted to put chicken wire 20 up here over septic tanks. 21 MS. UECKER: Yeah. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It was like a beer joint in 23 1958. Of course, I don't remember that. I didn't go with 24 Bruce to get those hotel rooms. (Laughter.) But -- 25 MS. UECKER: Anyway, that's my -- whatever y'all 7-12-11 bwk 78 1 want to do. 2 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. If we're going to plow 3 through any more of the detail, I'm going to have a little 4 recess, give Kathy a break here. But what's the pleasure of 5 the Court? Do you want to have time to digest this material 6 that we got today, and maybe discuss it one-on-one with the 7 individuals concerned, or how do you want to handle it? I've 8 tried to encapsulate it so that you got -- you got some 9 numbers -- major numbers to work with. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, Judge -- 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It's easy to understand. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: I say "I" have. The folks in the 13 Auditor's office are doing the heavy lifting on this. 14 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Very nice breakdown. 15 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Very good. 16 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Preliminary, anyway. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you talking about -- are 18 you talking about bringing it back and talking about it again 19 today? Or what are we going to do with this information in 20 the future? 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Well, if you -- the main thing 22 I'm -- I'm inquiring, I guess, are whether or not you want to 23 go through any of these specific issues on salary adjustments 24 from specific departments, for specific purposes, or whether 25 you want an opportunity to first review the material that's 7-12-11 bwk 79 1 bound here, and if you have any questions about it, you can 2 talk to the department head or elected official one-on-one or 3 however you want to handle it. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, my view is that we 5 really need the -- the insurance number is huge. It's a big 6 part of our budget. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: I agree. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And we can't really -- you 9 know, a lot of this stuff is great to talk about, but until 10 we know if we have any money, all we can do is talk. And 11 until we get the insurance number, all we can do is talk. 12 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 13 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: That makes sense. 14 JUDGE TINLEY: Are you telling me that you don't 15 want another workshop until we know what our insurance cost 16 is going to be? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm kind of there, yeah. I 18 mean, I think there's a lot of information, but also if any 19 of the elected officials would -- you know, in prior years, 20 we -- everyone would come in and talk to us, you know, if 21 they want to plead cases or discuss things or -- you know, 22 we can certainly do another meeting for that. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, can we pull it up? Have 24 you already made any adjustments to what we proposed, Your 25 Honor? 'Cause now that we're doing it all on computer, we 7-12-11 bwk 80 1 put in our requests. Are there any adjustments? 2 MS. MABRY: Everything that was requested is in the 3 budget right now. 4 JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Currently? 6 MS. MABRY: Currently in the budget. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Then there wouldn't be any. 8 JUDGE TINLEY: That'll all be -- whatever's not 9 approved will be deletions and subtractions from the budget, 10 in essence. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 12 MS. PIEPER: Do we have to go through the computer 13 and try to figure that out? Or -- 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right now it's not in there. 15 The only thing I ask is, if there are going to be deletions 16 out of our individual budget, that we will get the 17 opportunity to know what those deletions are ahead of time 18 and discuss those one-on-one with you. 19 JUDGE TINLEY: The potential deletions are what are 20 included on these schedules. They're what you've asked for 21 in the way of increases. They're what you've asked for in 22 the way of raising 14's to 15's. They're already in at 15, 23 correct? 24 MS. MABRY: Already in at 15's. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All employees? 7-12-11 bwk 81 1 JUDGE TINLEY: All employees. 2 MS. MABRY: All the 14's are in as 15's. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: See, those kinds of things we 4 don't know yet, because -- 5 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Like on the employees, the -- 7 the normal procedure we've gone through for years is we plug 8 in the exact same numbers as the year before until the Court 9 decides what they're going to do, and that's the way it's 10 been, and that's what we've been doing for years. So, if 11 there is any employees change, most of us, the department 12 heads or elected officials, don't know what those are going 13 to be. And, yes, we'd like to be part of those discussions. 14 That's why I brought to you I haven't filled the five 15 positions, but this is what I'd like to do with them today. 16 That's the first opportunity I've had to ever say that to 17 anybody. 18 MS. HARGIS: No positions are cut in the budget. 19 They are as they are in the position schedule from last year. 20 The only change in the salary line items is taking the 21 retirement from 11.01 to 11.41, because that's the new rate 22 we receive from the Texas Association of Counties. The -- 23 and then the 14's to 15's. So, if you have a 14, they have 24 been raised to a 15. Other than that, there are no changes. 25 Nobody's been -- your positions that you showed on your 7-12-11 bwk 82 1 position schedule in your budget book is still there until 2 this Court makes those decisions. 3 JUDGE TINLEY: So, we'll be doing -- potentially, 4 we'll be doing deletions. Now, there is that one position 5 that's not in the budget. 6 MS. HARGIS: One position has been deleted. 7 JUDGE TINLEY: But that one's not relevant. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Whatever adjustments that are 9 being made, 'cause I know in the computer, there's a place 10 for our requested, for recommended, and then for approved. 11 If we would get notice, 'cause it doesn't -- from what I've 12 seen is changed, it actually looks like I changed it, okay? 13 I mean, when she changes it, I don't know -- she does -- Tess 14 does let us know on some of those, but if you've changed 15 anything, that's not going in the recommended column; it's 16 going in the requested column, so it looks like I requested 17 the change when I pull it up. And I didn't. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Your notes -- your notes that you 19 put in there for your requests -- 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: -- should be the key to the trigger 22 of everything that occurred. 23 MS. MABRY: What I do is, the initial D.R. budget 24 is the department requested budget. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's right. 7-12-11 bwk 83 1 MS. MABRY: Which is where you plug everything in. 2 At that point, when we've looked over it, done calculations 3 on it, and done maybe some adjustments, then we close it out, 4 copy it over to the A.R. budget, which is the budget these 5 guys have access to, and then they make any recommended 6 changes or whatnot and let me know if there are any salary 7 changes, and then I also take what I get from H.R. and I plug 8 that in, all the requested. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Then what I'm asking Tess is, 10 the budget that I turned in -- the D.R. requested, okay? 11 What they see, is that exactly what I turned in, or is that 12 what you've adjusted behind the scenes some on that? That's 13 what I'm wondering. 14 MS. MABRY: It has been adjusted to a point, but 15 the notes remain. Any notes that you put in remain. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But the notes aren't the -- 17 aren't necessarily the bottom line. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Let her finish, please. 19 MS. MABRY: Anything that you have, there's a point 20 at which I can't do any more as far as, like, adjustments. I 21 receive all of the requests, and there may be some 22 calculations, but no cuts are made until the A.R. budget, 23 until it's copied over. 24 MS. HARGIS: So, your -- the D.R. budget should be 25 your budget. Dollar -- 7-12-11 bwk 84 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The dollar amounts. 2 MS. HARGIS: The dollar amounts. Then you look at 3 the amount, subtract the difference, and that's what we've 4 cut. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What do they see? 6 MS. HARGIS: They see both. They see the A.R. 7 budget that's recommended to them, and then we make the cuts 8 in the A.R. so that you can subtract. But there is notes 9 there that you can look at as to why we cut it. Those notes 10 are already in there, so if we cut one of your line items, 11 look at the note. It will tell you why. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 13 MS. HARGIS: Some of them have been increased, not 14 decreased. For instance, the property insurance has been 15 increased. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right. 17 MS. HARGIS: We have also gone in -- and I told the 18 Judge yesterday, we've noticed in the court system, we have 19 more -- it's your favorite thing, Buster, the transcripts. 20 We have more transcripts being requested because there's more 21 trials going to appeal. We have more than busted that 22 budget, so we put a little bit more in there. Not a lot, 23 just a little bit, because I want you to see a realistic 24 number that we're going to hit. The defense attorneys are 25 going down, thanks to Rosa and Dawn's work, but we're not 7-12-11 bwk 85 1 seeing it totally yet, because it takes a while for those to 2 hit, because it's a 90-day or more cycle for those attorneys 3 to turn in bills. So, we've hit those numbers. But by and 4 large, unless it was just way out of -- of your five-year 5 average, we didn't touch them. Most everybody this year hit 6 it right on the nose, so there's very, very few cuts this 7 year. So, if you -- if you'll go on the A.R., go to the 8 reports, go to report generator, go to budget worksheets, go 9 to A.R. recommended budgets, you'll see all the columns, 10 including all the prior years. And if you have a problem, 11 call the office, and we'll -- that's basically what they're 12 looking at today. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay, 'cause that's what -- we 14 just want to make sure we're all looking at the same thing 15 you're looking at. 16 JUDGE TINLEY: Right. 17 MS. HARGIS: Y'all have access to that. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- the requested budget 19 was -- 20 MS. HARGIS: The D.R. budget. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: D.R. budget, Fund 10 was 18 22 million, 895. The A.R. that we're looking at is 18 million, 23 807, so there's about an $80,000 change. And those are the 24 adjustments that Tess was talking about that she made in the 25 requested budget. 7-12-11 bwk 86 1 MS. MABRY: I went through every line item and did 2 a projection till the end of the year. Relatively -- I mean, 3 it was probably about a month or so ago. And so I projected 4 everything at the end of the year, what you will probably end 5 up with, and then budgeted based on that projection, as well 6 as looking at the trends for the last few years. 7 MS. HARGIS: For the expense side. 8 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's the way to do it, 9 because that eliminates a lot of those little places where, 10 you know, "Oh, well, we need another 500 here." Well, your 11 average doesn't show that of actual expenditures. 12 MS. HARGIS: That's correct. That's good. The 13 other thing that we've -- I do the revenue side. I've been 14 very, very conservative, yet, you know, I'll redo that. I 15 try to redo that about every two weeks; I'll look at it so 16 that the closer we get, I'll try to get better revenue 17 numbers for you the closer we get. But when you're this far 18 out, it's kind of hard for me to predict, especially the 19 sales tax. We're at an uptick in the sales tax. We're up 20 about 5 percent from last year, and it's been not consistent, 21 but -- we had one month when we went down. But -- but the 22 last two months have been -- so I'm hoping we'll hold that 23 till the end of the year. So, there's some good things out 24 there. Some of the other courts are doing a little bit 25 better; the fees are up a little bit. I actually thought 7-12-11 bwk 87 1 this would be a really bad year. I have to tell you, it 2 doesn't look like that bad a year. I think our biggest 3 problem is paying for the fire. I think if you'll look and 4 see your bottom line there, it isn't that bad. I think all 5 of you will look at your bottom line. If you'll take the 6 arrow -- 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I know Fund 10 -- 8 MS. HARGIS: Up at the very top. See the -- next 9 to where it says "page"? 10 MS. MABRY: Be Page 81. 11 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: 81. 12 MS. HARGIS: Just click the last arrow, clicking 13 back one. She's got all the funds in here? Go to Page 81, 14 then, 'cause she's got all the funds in here. I didn't know 15 that. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Takes forever to get to 81. 17 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Slide your little bar across. 18 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, slide the bar across up at the 19 top. Maybe the column where it says -- 20 (Discussion off the record.) 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're there already? 22 MS. HARGIS: See your bottom line? That's good. 23 It's positive. 24 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Yeah, that's positive. 25 MS. HARGIS: That's a positive number, guys. See 7-12-11 bwk 88 1 that, Jonathan? 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What are we looking at? 3 MS. HARGIS: Right there, 565. Positive number. 4 We don't have it in the fire. We don't have the money in the 5 fire; that's the only place we don't have it. 6 COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Just don't have it. But this 7 is what, the 15 -- 14's going to 15's? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You don't -- 9 (Multiple discussions at the same time; court reporter asked everyone to speak one at a time.) 10 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, okay. It's in the 12 overall, but it's not -- 13 MS. HARGIS: Not in the summary, we didn't allocate 14 any money. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why not? Got to pay for it. 16 We're doing it. I mean, I think we need to have the 500,000 17 in here somewhere. Not in Fund 10. 18 JUDGE TINLEY: Oh, we've got the 500 there. 19 MS. HARGIS: We have the expense there. 20 JUDGE TINLEY: We just don't have the -- 21 MS. HARGIS: We got the expense in. 22 JUDGE TINLEY: We know what that is. 23 COMMISSIONER OVERBY: Yeah. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm saying how do we not know 25 what it is? It's 500,000. 7-12-11 bwk 89 1 MS. HARGIS: If you'll go to 14, it's in there. 2 But, I mean, I thought it would be a whole lot worse, to be 3 honest with you guys. And we have checked and rechecked, and 4 I'm having to do it again. So, it -- that's how we've held 5 it down this year. I think it's a good budget that's giving 6 adequate to everybody. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And the -- the 13 employees are 8 in here, so that's lower. 9 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 10 JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, I mean, really -- so from 12 my standpoint, until we have insurance numbers, I don't 13 know -- 14 MS. HARGIS: We don't do anything with the 15 insurance numbers. Now, do I have an insurance schedule in 16 here, and it doesn't like grade. I think what we're going to 17 have to do is do a budget -- blank budget amendment on that 18 one. But what I want to do is pull -- remember that unless 19 the person is sitting in the seat, the money doesn't move. 20 So, we have a program now that we -- that Tess designed that 21 we can pull those numbers up and see how much money we have 22 left. I still think we're going to be close to 500,000 in 23 the hole, but we're going to be closer than I thought. But 24 that's because of those large claims that we couldn't -- 25 couldn't get rid of. But the fund balance is not great. 7-12-11 bwk 90 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The only thing I'd ask -- you 2 know, we know how Tess has done it, the D.R. and the A.R., so 3 now we can go back and pull that up and print it out 4 ourselves. If there are questions, we have the opportunity 5 to, at some point, to ask about those. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. You can print those, 7 too. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now I can print it, look at it 9 and have something to ask about. 10 MS. HARGIS: And if he changed it, again, there's a 11 note that we changed it. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's all right. 13 MS. HARGIS: 'Cause we want to know as well, why. 14 Most of them we went up on them, and not down, 'cause we 15 could see y'all weren't taking quite enough in. I'd rather 16 you have what you need rather than have to try to find it 17 somewhere else during the year. 18 MS. BOLIN: Are you going to do a new step and 19 grade? 20 MS. HARGIS: We're going to do a dummy one. 21 JUDGE TINLEY: Excuse me. If y'all want to have 22 all these individual conversations here, you're going to have 23 that opportunity here in just a moment. Have we got anything 24 else from anybody on the Court that we need to throw out in 25 the clear here? We're adjourned. Have at it. 7-12-11 bwk 91 1 (Budget workshop adjourned at 350 p.m.) 2 - - - - - - - - - - 3 4 5 STATE OF TEXAS | 6 COUNTY OF KERR | 7 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 8 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 9 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 10 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 11 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 19th day of July, 2011. 12 13 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 14 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 15 Certified Shorthand Reporter 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7-12-11 bwk