1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT 9 Budget Workshop 10 Tuesday, May 27, 2014 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: TOM POLLARD, Kerr County Judge H. A. "BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1 24 TOM MOSER, Commissioner Pct. 2 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3 25 BOB REEVES, Commissioner Pct. 4 2 1 I N D E X May 27, 2014 2 PAGE 3 Participate in Budget Workshops with county departments, including, but not limited to: 4 216th District Court 3 5 Jail Court 10 6 198th District Court 16 7 216th District Attorney 20 8 Justice of the Peace 1, 2, 3 and 4 22 9 J.P. Technology Fund 32 10 Constable 1, 2, 3 and 4 36 11 Courthouse and Related Buildings 42 12 Jail Maintenance 60 13 General Maintenance - H.C.Y.E.C. 66 14 County Jail 81 15 Sheriff’s Department 98 16 Sheriff’s Office Annex 106 17 Courthouse Security 107 18 Crime Victims Coordinator 115 19 Indigent Services 117 20 Pauper Burials 124 21 County Treasurer 126 22 --- Adjourned 131 23 24 25 3 1 On Tuesday, May 27, 2014, 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 POLLARD: Okay. It's 1:30 p.m., it's May 8 27th, 2014. The Commissioners Court workshop agenda is in 9 session. First, this is posted in accordance with Title 551, 10 the Government Code -- of Title 5, Chapter 552. First item 11 on the agenda is the 216th Judicial District Court, and 12 that's on Pages 26 and 27, it says. District Courts. 13 MS. HARGIS: There's a tab for District Courts. 14 JUDGE EMERSON: Keith couldn't be here. He said if 15 there's any overage, you need to kick it over into the 198th. 16 (Laughter.) I thought I'd relay that message. 17 MS. HENDERSON: He did apologize. He's in Kendall 18 County, and the hearing he had going, he just called me and 19 said it's still going. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's all right, Judge. I 21 guess it just isn't important to him. 22 JUDGE EMERSON: He does have a couple of things 23 he'd like to address on the budget. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: I'm glad, 'cause I don't -- I don't 25 have any questions about it. 5-27-14 bwk 4 1 JUDGE EMERSON: Well, then you'll be happy. 2 MS. HENDERSON: We're going to lower some. 3 JUDGE EMERSON: 435-301, court reporter. I don't 4 know what Kerr County's share is, but he's -- he's dropping 5 the salary from the existing salary to the new court reporter 6 that will be paid 70,000 a year, so that's a $25,000 7 reduction. I suspect a good portion of that is Kerr County. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: The fifth item down. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 301. 10 MS. HARGIS: It's already in there. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 41,000? Am I looking at the 12 wrong thing? 13 JUDGE EMERSON: No, that shows Kerr County's 14 portion, but that's under the old salary. 15 MS. HARGIS: I've changed it around. 16 JUDGE EMERSON: Oh, did you? 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I was looking at what the 18 Auditor gave me. 19 JUDGE EMERSON: Okay. Well, it's a $4,000 savings 20 for the county, then. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So instead of 41,000, it's 22 37,000, Jeannie? 23 MS. HENDERSON: Doesn't sound like -- 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rex, what number are you 25 putting down there? 5-27-14 bwk 5 1 JUDGE EMERSON: Well, he just told me to drop it 2 from 95 to 70. I don't know what Kerr County's share is. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He expect you to do the 4 math. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: So, that would be 35. 6 JUDGE EMERSON: There's a reason I'm an attorney, 7 not an accountant. 8 MS. HARGIS: It's 37. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: 37 what? 10 MS. HARGIS: The number that's in there is correct. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: 37,449 is correct? 12 MR. ROBLES: Yes. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 14 JUDGE EMERSON: The other changes that he wants to 15 make are down almost to the bottom in line item 435-485. He 16 wants to reduce that by $500 to $2,000. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's conferences? 19 JUDGE EMERSON: Correct. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. Minus 500, okay. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Looks good to me. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I have a question. 23 JUDGE EMERSON: Yes, sir? 24 JUDGE POLLARD: And I'm going to do my normal thing 25 of going back to actuals. In 2013, on line item 402, 5-27-14 bwk 6 1 Court-appointed -- Court-appointed attorneys were 130,000. 2 Next year they jumped up to 155,000, which is like a 20 3 percent increase. 4 JUDGE EMERSON: Let me tell you why that's 5 happening. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'm all ears. 7 JUDGE EMERSON: Effectively, January 1st, the 8 Michael Morton Act went into effect. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 10 JUDGE EMERSON: And Code of Criminal Procedure 11 39.14. The problem that's creating is that there are new 12 requirements for both the District Attorney and the defense 13 attorneys under the Michael Morton Act. And what it did was 14 it eliminated all fast-track pleas, and it created a specific 15 duty for the defense attorneys and the District Attorneys 16 such as there's no way that we can expedite cases any more. 17 What that's doing is tying up the defendants. Best guess, 18 from what we can tell so far, it's probably going to string 19 the cases out another 20 to 50 percent. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, so that was the reason. 21 Okay. Thank you, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's the same story the 23 other guy told us the other day. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Amazing. 5-27-14 bwk 7 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Another question I have, if I 2 may. On 415, Special District Judge, 3,000 -- it was $3,000; 3 currently is 2,000, but it's never been there before. 4 MS. HARGIS: We budgeted it last year at three. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I know, I said it was last 6 year; I said that. 7 JUDGE EMERSON: The reason now it's two, but it's 8 never been there before is -- Becky can correct me if I'm 9 wrong, but the reason that's there is because previously 10 we've had a lot more access to visiting judges. Now we're 11 down to basically one, which is Judge Barton that lives here. 12 If we have to bring somebody in from out of county for any 13 reason, then we'll end up paying mileage and expenses. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So why did it change last year 15 from nothing to something last year? 16 JUDGE EMERSON: I defer to the expert. 17 MS. HENDERSON: We've always had Special District 18 Judge. I think if I'm -- and I may be wrong on this, but I 19 think you guys put everything under that jail docket for 20 Special District Judge. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I see. 22 MS. HENDERSON: Remember when we had the special -- 23 the judge that went out to the jail, I think that line item 24 went under that, but we no longer have that. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, just a change in line 5-27-14 bwk 8 1 items. 2 MS. HENDERSON: Yes, sir, that's my understanding. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Sounds good. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If that's the case, then, 5 and the Friday jail court is shutting down, I understand. 6 JUDGE EMERSON: Correct. Judge Williams and I are 7 covering the judicial side, along with our court reporters, 8 so those two line items are gone. And there's no reason to 9 have a fast-track defense attorney any more, 'cause you can't 10 fast-track. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So we need to break that out 12 and bring it back here to this budget, then, right? 13 MS. HENDERSON: Well, the only thing you would 14 have, I would think, would be your visiting District Judge. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right. 16 MS. HENDERSON: Which falls under the -- 17 MS. HARGIS: We had it -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Do you have one? 19 MS. HARGIS: The defense attorney -- the defense 20 attorney and the 36,000, we have removed that. 21 JUDGE EMERSON: I don't know where the fast-track 22 budget shows up. 23 MS. HARGIS: It's under 10-437. It's in -- it's 24 the last piece of paper behind your District Court Judges. 25 It's jail court. 5-27-14 bwk 9 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Another question on line item 2 497, courts transcripts. In '13, it was 3,000, and jumped up 3 to 13,5, and it's 13,5 now. So, the big increase is because 4 of? 5 JUDGE EMERSON: A lot more appeals and a lot more 6 indigent appointments under the new standards. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: A 400 percent increase from 8 one year to the next. 9 MS. HENDERSON: It can be. We never know. 10 JUDGE EMERSON: We know -- and correct me if I'm -- 11 I apologize. We were talking about this last week in case 12 Judge Williams couldn't be here, and I don't remember the 13 exact numbers, but he has quite a few cases that he believes 14 are going to go up on appeal that are currently in process. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Only takes one case with a big -- a 16 long one with a lot of transcripts in it, for them to appeal 17 it, and being indigent, and wham, it kills you. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. I'm just looking 19 historically, what it's been. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: So it's hard to predict. 21 JUDGE EMERSON: The biggest problem is our indigent 22 appointments are going up significantly. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Are they increasing? 24 JUDGE EMERSON: Yes, sir. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Huh? It's a big increase. 5-27-14 bwk 10 1 Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Going back -- I think this is 3 really more for the Auditor. The jail court, the 437. 4 MS. HARGIS: Yes? 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We dealt with that one last 6 time, and I had a note we were going to visit about it today. 7 So, is that -- the 36,000 staying on that? Or -- 8 MS. HARGIS: No, it -- we'll take that to zero. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, so that goes to zero. 10 MS. HARGIS: Right. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Are we going to move it to 13 any place else, or is that just -- 14 MS. HARGIS: No, just reducing the budget. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And one other -- 16 MS. HARGIS: That was just for the jail court, and 17 so there's no reason to move it anywhere right now. That 18 just means our deficit got a little less. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And the line item 570, capital 20 outlay? It's a new thing, $2,000. 21 MS. HENDERSON: Okay. That 2,000, I'm -- 22 JUDGE EMERSON: I'm going to address -- if I can 23 address both budgets together, this $2,000 that's in the 24 216th is for security, is the reason it's in there. Once the 25 Sheriff's security plan is completely implemented, then that 5-27-14 bwk 11 1 will give us some money to make some changes on our side. 2 And you'll see a comparable line item in my budget also. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'll address that some more. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, increasing security? 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'll address that some more 6 during my budget. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But it's in this budget right 8 now. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That 2,000 they'll need, I 10 would recommend leaving that. When you get to the courthouse 11 security budget in just a little bit you'll understand why. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So it needs to be both places? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, I would, because they do 14 do some things that the judges themselves want that I don't 15 necessarily feel I can take care of. Now, we can put it all 16 in one; it doesn't matter. It's going to, you know -- 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Is this the stuff we were talking 18 about, moving the doors and things like that? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Part of it. Some of that's in 20 mine, okay? But there were some other issues that they may 21 have wanted in theirs. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it should be in one 23 spot. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I do too. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't care if it's in 5-27-14 bwk 12 1 courthouse security or -- which makes the most sense to me, 2 to be in the courthouse security. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The's going to be in 4 courthouse security, and if they have a request, they can -- 5 for something specific, they can come to us and ask. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That ought to in be one place, 7 too. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just move the funds. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: All adds up to the same thing. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, but just tracking it 11 every year, we'll have the same discussion. Okay, that's all 12 the questions I had. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, one other question I have. 15 Are all these administrative costs -- how are they shared 16 with other counties? What -- what's the basis? 17 MS. HENDERSON: Population. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Population? 19 MS. HENDERSON: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, thank you. 21 MS. HENDERSON: Based on the population. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So we'll combine these lines 23 into one unit, and then next year we'll come along and say, 24 "God, we really need to break those things out so that we can 25 see who's -- if the District Judge is participating in this 5-27-14 bwk 13 1 or not," and that'll be the conversation. But that's what we 2 do, I guess. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Happened before. 4 MS. HARGIS: What did you want me to do with it? 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think we want to combine 6 everything into one. I don't know where, but -- 7 MS. HARGIS: Under 499? 8 JUDGE POLLARD: I guess so. It makes more sense to 9 be allocated to each place, to me. From an accounting 10 standpoint, that's what you do. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, it helps. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Because there are two District 13 Courts, and -- but do it the way you want to. I don't care. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the -- I'm just 15 questioning. These capital items, the 2,000 here, the 3,000 16 in yours, is for that same project, correct? 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: There's additions to that. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rusty wants to put a door 19 there, and they want it red, is basically what it is. Are 20 you saying that -- what are you saying? 21 JUDGE POLLARD: I'm saying that if you do your 22 accounting -- you allocate your accounting responsibility 23 where it -- to the various parties that share in it. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, I agree. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: That's the way of doing that. And 5-27-14 bwk 14 1 we have two District Courts, that that's where it ought to 2 be. 3 JUDGE EMERSON: If it has any effect, I don't -- I 4 do not anticipate ours being an ongoing expense. We'll make 5 the improvements, and then that should be the end of it. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The same with his, I think. We 7 talked about it. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's true. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Makes no difference to me. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: It doesn't to me either. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It's not a big -- 13 MS. HARGIS: Just leave it for right now? 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Go ahead and put it all in one, 15 then. (Laughter.) 16 MS. HARGIS: That's what happened. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, do we have any capital 18 cases that are likely to hit this next year -- capital 19 murder? 20 JUDGE EMERSON: We could. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: You plan on hurting anybody? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Just don't until we see if the 23 budget will support it. 24 JUDGE EMERSON: I think I'll plead the fifth. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It seems like we haven't -- 5-27-14 bwk 15 1 JUDGE EMERSON: We had -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- had one in several years, so 3 there's been some capital murders in the county, and at some 4 point they come through. Part of that is paid for out of the 5 -- our deal in Lubbock. 6 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that doesn't pay for all of 8 it? 9 JUDGE EMERSON: Only if -- only if the death 10 penalty is in it, and it still doesn't pay all of it. But if 11 it's a death penalty capital case, then the regional defense 12 plan kicks in. What happens, which is what happened -- has 13 happened previously in the last couple years, it starts out 14 death penalty, and then it transitions to non-death penalty. 15 Then they immediately withdraw, and so we have to appoint 16 local counsel. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: But you're right; it can wreck the 18 budget. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's -- that's kind of -- I 20 mean, and we've kind of always tried to get an idea. You 21 never know. 22 JUDGE EMERSON: I can tell you McLennan County just 23 finished trying one, and my understanding, the indigent 24 defense cost was right at $370,000. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is the -- what's the status in 5-27-14 bwk 16 1 the Seard -- is that going to move anywhere? 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, it's not going to move, 3 not unless we get something different from North Texas. But 4 at this point, I don't see anything going forward with that 5 right now in the foreseeable future. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 7 JUDGE POLLARD: No further questions of the 8 courts -- District Courts? 9 MS. HARGIS: No. 10 JUDGE EMERSON: What about the 198th? 'Cause I 11 have something I need to address. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. Yeah, let's go to yours. 13 JUDGE EMERSON: If you look at the 198th budget, on 14 line item 436-415, we need to reduce that from 3,000 to 15 2,000. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rex is good; he comes in here 17 cutting things. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, yeah. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Enjoy it. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He says what he wants to add. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Say that again, Rex? 22 JUDGE EMERSON: On 436-415, Special District Judge, 23 reduce it by 1,000, please. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: My recollection -- oh, 25 question on 301, court reporter line. Why is the 198th court 5-27-14 bwk 17 1 reporter 53 compared to, like, 37 for 216th? 2 JUDGE EMERSON: Because I have two counties, and 3 y'all -- and 216th has three. 4 MS. HENDERSON: So it's proportioned on population. 5 216th's proportion of population is between three counties. 6 We're in Bandera and Kerr; the 198th just has two counties. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. So that's the 8 difference in the court reporter? 9 MS. HENDERSON: Yes, sir. 10 JUDGE EMERSON: Correct. The other change I need 11 to make is on 436-497, court transcripts; reduce from it 12 23,000 to 18,000. And then the next change that we need to 13 make is on the 436-569, operating equipment. I'd request to 14 increase it from 1,000 to 1,300, and what that's going to be 15 used for are the Microsoft-compatible iPad-type devices for 16 realtime reporting for our court reporters. And that will 17 actually cover both courts. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And 402, Court-appointed 19 attorneys, up by $10,000 just from last year? 20 JUDGE EMERSON: Same thing, Michael Morton Act. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. 22 JUDGE EMERSON: We're just crossing our fingers, 23 hoping that's the limit of it. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. Okay. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Is that it? 5-27-14 bwk 18 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. 3 JUDGE EMERSON: Thank y'all. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Appreciate it. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I never did like that 7 Michael Morton guy. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Sure don't like him lately. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We really don't like him. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He's expensive. 11 MS. HARGIS: There is one other budget under that. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Almost as expensive as HIPAA. 13 MS. HARGIS: And it's the next-to-the-last one. 14 It's C.P.S. civil attorney. That's the one that we talked 15 about this morning. And -- 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Where are you, Jeannie? 17 MS. HARGIS: You're in the same tab, right behind 18 the 198th. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 20 MS. HARGIS: 10-407-403. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 22 MS. HARGIS: That's what Judge Emerson was 23 referring to this morning, is we are reducing this budget. 24 Now, we will still have to keep some money in there for the 25 families -- I mean the mothers and fathers. So, I don't know 5-27-14 bwk 19 1 if we want to go down on this or not. It may work and it may 2 not. You know, it's an experiment. 'Cause if you have two 3 kids, you're going to have -- so it's up to y'all. 112,000 4 is what we spent on the kids. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He and I are at 437. Is that 6 where you are? 7 MS. HARGIS: 10-407-403. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let me find it, please. I'm 9 sorry. And it's right behind 436? 10 MS. HARGIS: It's right behind 436; should be -- 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: In the new book? 12 MS. HARGIS: In the new book. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Not in the old one. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Jeannie, as he was -- the 15 thought was to go with a $25,000 reduction? 16 MS. HARGIS: He was to go with 80,000, about 25. 17 80,000 -- 75,000 to 80,000 for the one attorney. So, I mean, 18 we could take this down to 150. This is the one that -- you 19 know, this is a judge that comes in from the outside. We 20 really don't have any control over this one. This is the one 21 that is the most expensive. If you notice year-to-date 22 actual, it's already 6,000 greater than the other two courts. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think if we're going to 24 institute the new plan and hire a full-time attorney to 25 handle these, the idea was that it would save, so I think we 5-27-14 bwk 20 1 should reduce it to 150, which is still more than what the 2 discussion was this morning. 3 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Now, this includes both the 4 ad litem for the children -- 5 MS. HARGIS: And the parents. 6 COMMISSIONER REEVES: -- and the parents? 7 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. And he's right; it's rare 8 that we do have more than one child, but we did have a really 9 big case that cost us about $150,000 the year that he went 10 upstairs as the District Judge. And that case went on, if 11 you'll recall, for about a year. There were two mothers and 12 three fathers and seven kids; it was very complicated. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And also -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 150. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 150. 16 MS. HARGIS: Okay, that's all on that. And we cut 17 the 36. Everybody agree? 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 19 MS. HARGIS: Okay. There's a tab for District 20 Attorney, which is the next one. A little farther back, Page 21 34. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: There's a tab for it. 23 MS. HARGIS: It would be further back than the 24 District Courts. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Page 34. It has actually 5-27-14 bwk 21 1 pages on it. 2 MS. HARGIS: It's behind Veteran Services. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Are we under 437 now? 4 MR. ROBLES: Should be 440. 5 MS. HARGIS: 440. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I thought we were -- what 7 happened to 437? 8 MR. ROBLES: We agreed to take that down to zero. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Huh? 10 MR. ROBLES: We agreed to take that down to zero. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, sorry, I didn't hear that. 12 Okay. 13 MS. HARGIS: Everybody got the District Attorney? 14 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 15 JUDGE POLLARD: No problem. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We kind of went over the 198th 17 the other day. 18 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The honorable 216th is here. 20 MS. HARGIS: Bruce is here. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Honorable one. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The honorable one. 23 MR. CURRY: Oh. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's you, Bruce. 25 MR. CURRY: Oh, I was looking around. Good 5-27-14 bwk 22 1 afternoon. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Howdy. 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't have any questions. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't either. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't either. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What could you question 7 here? 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Don't say anything. 9 AUDIENCE: You have the right to remain silent. 10 (Laughter.) 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right to remain silent. 12 MR. CURRY: Yes, okay. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Thanks, Bruce. 14 MR. CURRY: Thank you. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We've done 198th. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Yes. 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yes. 18 MS. HARGIS: Okay. The J.P.'s start behind the 19 District Clerk. It's called Justice of the Peace, starts 20 with J.P. 1. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That would be Page 38. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Yep. 23 MS. HARGIS: Judge Billeiter's not here? 24 AUDIENCE: No. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: The page goes from 37 to 25. 5-27-14 bwk 23 1 Here we go. 2 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 3 MS. HARGIS: Do you want me to present this one, or 4 go to another one? 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hey, Jeannie, I could ask you 6 a question on that on group insurance, and it's probably 7 going to be a general response that you have. Last -- 2013, 8 14,000; now it's up to 31,000. And -- 9 MS. HARGIS: 21. We changed -- 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Where does it say 21? 11 MS. HARGIS: We actually need to change that back 12 down to the -- 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, so that's a 50 percent 14 increase. So -- 15 MS. HARGIS: Remember, it's because they chose the 16 family, so we need to bring that -- all of those down to 17 7,860 till we get our premium, so it should be two times 18 7,860. That's an individual. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, instead of 21,876, it's 20 going to be what? 21 MS. HARGIS: 7,860 times two. 15,720. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 15,720. So minus $6,000. 23 MS. HARGIS: We'll adjust those after we know what 24 the premium really is. 25 JUDGE BILLEITER: I don't know what I've been 5-27-14 bwk 24 1 called in for, but I plead guilty. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You are. 3 JUDGE BILLEITER: Okay. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, instead of -- these are 5 going to be -- Jeannie, that's going to be across the board 6 on all these things? 7 MS. HARGIS: Yes, on all of them, it's going to be 8 down to the individual premium until they do -- they sign up. 9 Because we need -- we've been borrowing from Rusty's budget, 10 and we have to have -- he could have every employee -- he 11 could be fully staffed, and if he's fully staffed, he needs 12 that. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, when we look at your 14 budget book, you're just -- it's just not up-to-date; is that 15 what it is? 16 MS. HARGIS: No, this one just got missed, Tom, I'm 17 sorry. We missed this one, because -- 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. That's okay. I just 19 want to understand, okay. No problem. Thank you. No 20 problem. 21 MS. HARGIS: We may have missed all the J.P.'s. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, that's okay. That's the 23 only question I have. 24 MS. HARGIS: We did a budget amendment because we 25 didn't want them to go over, but now we need to bring them 5-27-14 bwk 25 1 back down. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One of the questions is on 3 conferences. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: New J.P. 5 JUDGE BILLEITER: Is this on mine? Really, you 6 should have Mitzi in here; this is the budget she has to live 7 with. The reason that that is the way it is is because she 8 has to have 80 hours of judicial training within the first 9 year of office. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 11 JUDGE BILLEITER: So -- 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge Billeiter, I agree 13 with you. Where is she? Why isn't she in here? 14 JUDGE BILLEITER: I don't know. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's hard to get good help, 16 isn't it? 17 JUDGE BILLEITER: Yeah, it is. Yeah. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Did you vote for her? 19 JUDGE BILLEITER: She probably didn't know. She 20 probably was not invited. But that's the reason for that. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. I assumed that was in 22 this one; just wanted to make sure. All right. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is there any other changes? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, pretty simple. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't have any other 5-27-14 bwk 26 1 questions. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 3 JUDGE BILLEITER: Is that it? Okay. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you, sir. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Any questions for J.P. 2? 6 What's the -- 7 JUDGE HOYNE: Good afternoon. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't have any. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't have any questions. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the capital outlay? 11 Recarpet? 12 JUDGE HOYNE: I'd like to withdraw the recarpet and 13 just repaint. We can do that. Carpeting -- 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that something that 15 Maintenance can do? Or -- I mean, do we need to have 2,500 16 in here? 17 MS. HARGIS: He needs to pay for the paint -- 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 19 MS. HARGIS: -- in his budget. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Hopefully it's not $2,500. 21 MS. HARGIS: No. No. 22 JUDGE HOYNE: Good paint. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good paint. 24 MS. HARGIS: He said he withdrew the carpet, so I 25 have no idea what paint is right now. 5-27-14 bwk 27 1 JUDGE POLLARD: So we'll reduce that to what? 2 MS. HARGIS: 10? 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would say $50 a gallon, 4 probably 400 square feet per gallon. $500? Maybe $1,000. 5 Paint's expensive. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Make it 1,000. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, do you put it in here, 8 or do you put it in Maintenance? 9 MS. HARGIS: In here. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was just a jab, sorry. 11 1,000? 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Any other comments or questions? 13 If not -- 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So nice to see you again. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: See you around, Judge. 16 JUDGE HOYNE: Thank you. Come by and visit 17 sometime. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge Mitchell? 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I had one question on -- we -- 20 on J.P. 4, and that's this -- 21 JUDGE POLLARD: She's three. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, she's three. I'm sorry. 23 I'm sorry. 24 JUDGE MITCHELL: I'll put him up here. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No, that's okay, sorry. 5-27-14 bwk 28 1 JUDGE POLLARD: I didn't really have a question on 2 hers. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Note how low her conferences 4 are. 5 JUDGE MITCHELL: Yeah. And also on mine, the 6 telephone line item, the 420 -- 457-420 was 200 last year, 7 and I took that away, so that's not there any longer. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Thank you. 9 JUDGE MITCHELL: Is that it? 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's it. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The hanging judge. 12 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Hey. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: How are you doing? 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: My only question is not with 15 the amount, but with office rent for J.P. 4, but we don't 16 have office rent -- that's not -- so that's unique to where 17 it's located? 18 JUDGE RAGSDALE: We don't own the building. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, we tried to buy it. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Or tried to buy a building. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I figured some historical 23 thing -- 24 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Every other J.P. precinct in 25 the county owns the building already. They're out there in a 5-27-14 bwk 29 1 rented building. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No other -- no county 3 facilities or anything? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We looked at lots of options, 5 and haven't been able to solve -- come up with one that works 6 yet, as I recall. 7 JUDGE RAGSDALE: We're fine. Looks nice. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That was just a question for 9 me. 10 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Come out and look. 11 COMMISSIONER REEVES: It is nice. I've been there. 12 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Got a lot of compliments on it 13 during voting and stuff. The only question that I have for 14 you all is that I understand that there is -- there are funds 15 for archiving records that are county-wide, and I have -- 16 I've been trying to go paperless. I have several boxes of 17 old civil cases that I would like to digitize and preserve 18 that way, and get rid of the old paper records that I've been 19 lugging around for 20 years. I talked to Jannett, and she 20 doesn't see any problem with those funds, but I don't know 21 how to acquire those funds. Do -- do I ask you during budget 22 time, and then you just transfer them over to -- what, the 23 part-time secretary line item? Or what do we do? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: No, we can't transfer it out; 25 it comes out of that budget. 5-27-14 bwk 30 1 JUDGE RAGSDALE: So, do I just kind of, like, bill 2 that budget for -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that -- does the county -- 4 MS. HARGIS: Fund 28 is for everybody. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is the county -- who kind of 6 oversees it? 7 MS. HARGIS: Jannett had been overseeing it. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: County Clerk? 9 JUDGE RAGSDALE: But I don't have to put that in my 10 budget? I just -- 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Then you -- you need to make 12 sure it gets in the archival budget. 13 MS. HARGIS: Fund 28. You just need to tell me how 14 much money you need from Fund 28. 15 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Okay. 16 MS. HARGIS: It's not -- we don't have to put any 17 personnel in there. 18 JUDGE RAGSDALE: I just didn't know how I could 19 spend it if it wasn't in my budget, so you've answered -- 20 that's the only question I have. Is there anything else you 21 guys need? 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I want to bring up the 23 -- under the current budget, going to the administrative 24 recommended, you've gone up one whole dollar. 25 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Ha. I'm sorry, prices have gone 5-27-14 bwk 31 1 up. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. Well, Bill, you're 3 going to have to get a handle on this thing. 4 JUDGE RAGSDALE: I'm trying, sir. I'm not a 5 spendthrift. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: A whole dollar over last 7 year. 8 JUDGE RAGSDALE: We were actually able to go down 9 in some places. That's good. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. 11 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Well, thank you. Appreciate it. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Judge, there's also a -- Judge, 13 there's also a technology fund that's county-wide for some 14 things that y'all could spend money on too. Isn't that 15 right? I don't know if you do -- if any of your stuff is 16 technology-related. You say you're going paperless. 17 JUDGE RAGSDALE: I think we have tried to restrict 18 that to our equipment. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 20 JUDGE RAGSDALE: Equipment or software. Not 21 personnel, I believe. Thank you. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Mm-hmm. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What are we on now, Judge? 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Where's Fund 26 in the book? 5-27-14 bwk 32 1 MS. HARGIS: It's right behind the J.P.'s, because 2 that's theirs. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Pages 135, -6, -7, right along 4 there. 5 MS. HARGIS: Right behind J.P. 4. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, okay, got it. 7 MS. HARGIS: This is really their technology fund; 8 they have the right to budget this. We've put $8,000 in here 9 in case they needed new computers or anything of that nature. 10 MR. TROLINGER: So, the J.P. technology fund -- is 11 that what we're on, Jeannie? Thank you. Software 12 maintenance is the only item I had this year, and I'll have 13 to get the exact number. I think 8,000 is low. I'll have to 14 look. 15 MS. HARGIS: Okay. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You think it's low? 17 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. I'll have to come back 18 with it. I'll call up right now. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do you have all those numbers 20 now, John? 21 MR. TROLINGER: I have them, but I need to go 22 recall it. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 24 MR. TROLINGER: Yes, sir. 25 MS. HARGIS: We've got some for about 12,000. 5-27-14 bwk 33 1 MR. TROLINGER: That sounds correct. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: For Fund 26, it should be 12? 3 MS. HARGIS: It says move 12,000 from Tyler 4 maintenance to I.T. software maintenance, so I don't know. 5 Let's wait and see what he says. That's a stand-alone fund. 6 Doesn't affect the general fund. 7 MR. TROLINGER: I calculated it at $15,946 for this 8 year, and I think I'm a little bit over on that. And 9 typically what we're doing is we're budgeting that line item 10 to use that money, but we hardly ever use all of it. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Why don't we put in here what 12 you think you're going to use rather than -- 13 MR. TROLINGER: This year it's 15,946. I think 14 it'll be less, but that's the -- that's the number I have 15 today. That's the estimate for software maintenance for all 16 four -- 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: What do you think it's going 18 to be next year? That's the idea of budgets, to put down 19 something to work toward, not just say, "That's going to take 20 care of it. I'll give you what I have left over." 21 MS. HARGIS: I don't think -- 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 'Cause somebody else is going 23 to get cut short. 24 MR. TROLINGER: I have -- 25 MS. HARGIS: No. No. 5-27-14 bwk 34 1 MR. TROLINGER: -- the full amount for -- for this 2 year coming is between 15,482 and 15,946, so I'm not -- I'm 3 not exact on the number, but I believe the higher number 4 would be -- 5 MS. HARGIS: 15,950. Please round it off. 6 MR. TROLINGER: 15,950 would be appropriate. 7 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Is what we budgeted this year 8 14? Am I reading this right? 9 MS. HARGIS: The current year, we budgeted 14. We 10 don't pay the software usually until almost the end of the 11 fiscal year. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, John, it's -- just looking 13 at historical, it's gone from 300 to 700 to 22,000 actual, to 14 14,000. So, what's -- 15 MR. TROLINGER: Okay. So, over the years, what 16 we've done is we've used it primarily to fund the software 17 maintenance. And the high year, the 22,000, we bought new 18 equipment, these large screens that you see here. There's 19 one in each of the J.P. courtrooms, and it has video 20 teleconference built into it, so that was that year that it 21 was high. We also built the courtroom in the lower level 22 here in the courthouse using that money that year, so that 23 was the high year. And then this year and the past year were 24 software maintenance primarily. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hmm. 5-27-14 bwk 35 1 MS. HARGIS: We haven't gotten our bill for the 2 software maintenance for this year yet. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But he's saying it's 15,000. 4 MS. HARGIS: We're going to get it for the current 5 year. We haven't got it. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I understand. 7 MS. HARGIS: This is the stand-alone fund. This 8 does not affect the general fund. And by putting the 9 software maintenance in this tech fund, it saves us money in 10 the general fund. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 12 MS. HARGIS: This is a dedicated fund based on fees 13 that they collect. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I see, okay. 15 MS. HARGIS: So it's much better to put it in this 16 fund. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 18 MS. HARGIS: Because it then it allows us to use -- 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 20 MS. HARGIS: -- our money for other things. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. All right. Okay, thank 22 you. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. What's next here? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Constables? 25 MS. HARGIS: Constables are behind that tab. 5-27-14 bwk 36 1 They're behind Maintenance, almost to the Sheriff's tab. 2 Page 66. 3 JUDGE POLLARD: There it is. 4 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: John, how old are y'all's 6 vehicles now? How long have you had them? 7 MR. LAVENDER: They're 2011's. I've got 8 approaching 50,000 on mine, 40-something. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're all in good shape. A 10 couple more years, certainly. 11 MR. LAVENDER: I expect to be able to drive it a 12 little bit longer, yeah. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, through the years I've 14 always complained, griped, and raised cain that the 15 constables don't reach out and assist the other law 16 enforcement agencies enough, but I'm here to announce that 17 this guy, every morning, every evening, he's in a school zone 18 doing his -- doing the job over there, which cuts loose 19 Rusty's people. Rusty's people used to do it, and they had a 20 deputy over there working the traffic in that school zone. 21 And Constable 1 does that now, and that cuts the law 22 enforcement, the big -- 23 MR. LAVENDER: I'm really trying to catch 24 Commissioner 1 speeding through there. (Laughter.) 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But he doesn't. 5-27-14 bwk 37 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: How many times has that 2 happened? Quite a few, hasn't it? 3 MR. LAVENDER: He stopped me one time. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Hey, I pulled him over one 5 time. Got to have a little fun over there, you know. But I 6 appreciate you doing that. 7 MR. LAVENDER: Thank you. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's good law enforcement, 9 in my opinion. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So does the Sheriff's Office. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll get to you in a minute. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We appreciate him doing that. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, yeah. 14 MR. LAVENDER: I took an alarm call for him this 15 morning 'cause all of his guys were running crazy. He works 16 two days a week. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We used to appreciate him 18 doing that. (Laughter.) 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's over. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yep, that's over now. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't have any questions. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't have any questions. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The only one I have a question 24 on is under vehicle repairs/maintenance. 25 MR. LAVENDER: Mm-hmm. Well, hopefully -- 5-27-14 bwk 38 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You normally don't spend 2,000. 2 You haven't ever spent 2,000. 3 MR. LAVENDER: But as the vehicle gets older, the 4 probability gets greater that that might happen. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 50,000 miles. 6 MR. LAVENDER: Yeah. And my goal in the budget is 7 not to spend that much. Not to -- not to spend that much. 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And normally what else comes 10 out of there, 'cause there is a $10,000 deductible -- a 11 $1,000 deductible on the insurance, and if by chance they -- 12 MR. LAVENDER: A deer runs over me. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 1,000 comes out right off the 14 top, and it's under vehicle maintenance, 'cause you got to 15 pay that deductible. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I kind of wanted to talk 17 about vehicle maintenance today, but I'll just mention it 18 now, and then y'all can chew on it, maybe talk about it a 19 little bit later. But as an example, if we had a real, live 20 unit road system like unit road systems are supposed to be 21 set up -- I mean, we have a good one, there's no question. 22 But you go down to New Braunfels and look at their unit road 23 system, and they have -- they maintain all county vehicles -- 24 you have to do the fist bump. County Sheriff's Office, 25 everything, all county vehicles are maintained under one 5-27-14 bwk 39 1 roof. And, you know, I've watched those guys and visited 2 with them for years and years and years, and they -- they 3 save a lot of money, a lot of money by doing it that way. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I had that very same question. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We'll talk about it when we 6 get to Rusty. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Or just in general, someone -- 8 it seems like there's a lot of money the County could save. 9 I don't know about the Sheriff, but vehicles like that, if 10 there was a central maintenance facility not only to do the 11 work, but to keep track of what needs to be done. You know, 12 timing belt breaks 'cause -- you know, don't wait till it 13 breaks. At 90,000 miles, change the timing belt. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's all computerized and 15 scheduled and -- 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think there could be a lot 17 of money to be saved. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: When you go down 46 right 19 before you get into New Braunfels, look over there on the 20 right. Pull in there sometimes. School buses and everything 21 is over there. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right, I agree. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Just pull in there and visit 24 with them, see how they do it. 25 MR. LAVENDER: I hope you don't want Precinct 1 5-27-14 bwk 40 1 constable to run it. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I was kind of thinking 3 that, but -- you know how good with law enforcement we are. 4 MR. LAVENDER: Yeah. Yeah. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Anybody have any other questions? 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir, thank you. 7 MR. LAVENDER: Thank you. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Thanks, John. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Constable 2? 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Anybody have any questions? 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I had one for Precinct 4. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, let's do one at a 13 time. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you 15 said any other -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We're on 3. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Number 3. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Peace. Peace. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Afternoon, Angel. 20 MR. GARZA: Afternoon. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The only one that I would take 22 out on yours would be the miscellaneous. I think most other 23 constables have eliminated that $100. It's just $100, but I 24 don't -- I think you're the only one that has it left. I 25 think we should go ahead be consistent and take it to zero. 5-27-14 bwk 41 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And the same thing on your 2 vehicle. It's reaching an age where it needs to go from $500 3 a year to 2,000? 4 MR. GARZA: Well, we got them at the same time, 5 Commissioner. Mine has, I think, 36,000 miles on it. I was 6 just trying to be consistent with all the other constables. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They probably all need tires 8 this year, I would suspect. 9 MS. HARGIS: They got tires last year. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Got tires last year? 11 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, most of them. Did you get 12 tires? 13 MR. GARZA: Yes, sir. 14 MS. HARGIS: They all did. We have three 15 Expeditions that were bought at the same time, 1, 2, and 3. 16 Four bought his later. 17 MR. GARZA: We got the vehicles in October of 18 2010 -- or November. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: So you want to take that $100 out? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Just to be consistent? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. 24 MR. GARZA: Thank you. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We did not buy a new vehicle 5-27-14 bwk 42 1 at the same time for Precinct 4 because he had his own 2 vehicle, and didn't -- didn't want any assistance in that at 3 that time. But we do now, I think. 4 MS. HARGIS: He has a truck. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Gene, you drive a lot more 6 than most of them. If you're going all the way out to the 7 Y.O., you're putting more miles and using more gas, correct? 8 MR. HUFFAKER: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's understandable. 10 MR. HUFFAKER: About 60 miles from here to the back 11 gate of Y.O. 12 COMMISSIONER REEVES: One way. 13 MR. HUFFAKER: One way. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: God. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: Anybody have any questions? I 16 don't. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir. Thank you, Gene. 18 JUDGE POLLARD: Thank you. Okay, Maintenance. 19 MS. HARGIS: There should be a tab for Maintenance. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: I haven't been able to find this 21 one yet. Have y'all found it? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I found it. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right in the middle of the 24 book. It's right after -- right after County Treasurer, Tax 25 Assessor. 5-27-14 bwk 43 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Now I see it. 2 MS. HARGIS: We worked on the projections; I hope 3 y'all like those better. A number were done by hand. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tim, what is -- 5 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- contract fees? Is that the 7 maintenance on the air-conditioners and all that stuff that 8 we do? Just -- I'm just -- 9 MR. BOLLIER: No, sir, that's your outside help 10 that you're -- that's your outside contractors, cleaning 11 crew. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, that's what that is, 13 cleaning crew. 14 MS. HARGIS: Our Saturday crew. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Saturday crew? Okay. For the 16 courthouse? 17 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that two people? 19 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Tim, on line item 350, 21 supplies -- 22 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- a $4,000 increase. 24 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. Before, we -- we did not 25 supply Animal Control, and now we are asked to do so, so I 5-27-14 bwk 44 1 have increased that that much. I could probably get away 2 with about 21,000, maybe 20,000 in that line item. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But you're also going to be 4 getting a newer event hall. 5 MR. BOLLIER: Sir? 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're getting a new event 7 hall. 8 MR. BOLLIER: Yeah. And if -- no, the new event 9 hall comes out of 666. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 11 MR. BOLLIER: And also in that, while we're talking 12 about that line item there, also I have some things there 13 that should come out of 450 which I did not put it in there, 14 out at Animal Control -- Animal Services. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go back, one at a time. 16 Supplies should be 20,000? 17 MR. BOLLIER: Supplies, yes, sir. I can get by 18 with 20,000 there in 350. Yes, sir, I can. 19 COMMISSIONER REEVES: How much? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 20. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Minus 500. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: I get minus 1,500. 23 MS. HARGIS: 1,500. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, minus 1,500, okay. I'm 25 sorry. Okay. 5-27-14 bwk 45 1 MR. BOLLIER: And up at 510-309, postage, I don't 2 know why the postage was taken out of there, but I either 3 need the postage put back -- back in 510, or I need to add 4 this postage to 666. 5 MS. HARGIS: It's in there. 6 MR. BOLLIER: Hmm? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's in here. 8 MR. BOLLIER: 109, postage. 9 MS. HARGIS: 309. 10 MR. BOLLIER: Is it 309? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 309. 12 MR. BOLLIER: Okay, yes. I'm sorry, 309. And I 13 don't have any idea why that was ever taken out, but I need 14 that money put back, either in 510 or 666, for the postage 15 out at the Ag Barn. That's more or less where we use it 90 16 percent of the time right now. 17 MS. HARGIS: We got 150 in there. You want to 18 leave it? It's back in. 19 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, it's in there. You can either 20 leave it there or you can put it all in 666. That's where 21 it's going to be used. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: That's not much postage at today's 23 prices. 24 MR. BOLLIER: No. 25 MS. HARGIS: Let's just leave it there, Tim. 5-27-14 bwk 46 1 MR. BOLLIER: I've talked to Jody, who -- who 2 usually does all the postage stuff, and she seems to think 3 $300 is more than adequate. 4 MS. HARGIS: From 150 to 300? 5 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, ma'am, please. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute, what are we 7 doing? 8 MR. BOLLIER: No, what I'm saying is we can 9 leave -- we can just put it in one, into 666, and make it 10 $300, and leave this blank. Make it easier. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is 666? 12 MR. BOLLIER: Ag Barn. 13 MS. HARGIS: Ag Barn; it's the last one. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So you're going to 15 consolidate the postage in the one that we're trying to do 16 right now? 17 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: To the Ag Barn budget? 19 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So this one's going to zero, 21 so -- 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So zero this one out. 23 MR. BOLLIER: Zero this one out, and just put 24 that -- 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just put it into 666. 5-27-14 bwk 47 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Tim, on contract -- you said 3 this is contract services for here at the courthouse? 4 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And didn't you say you -- I 6 don't know if it's in here, but you were requesting a new 7 employee? 8 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER REEVES: If you got a new employee, 10 could you work your schedules where you could eliminate the 11 contract services? 12 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir, I could. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And then partially pay for an 14 employee? 15 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir, I could. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: So you're saying if you could 17 get a new employee that's included in here, you would -- 18 could take out the 16; you would not need both the new 19 employee and contract services? 20 MR. BOLLIER: You're right, sir. 21 COMMISSIONER REEVES: But if you didn't get the new 22 employee, could you -- 23 MR. BOLLIER: No, sir. 24 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Okay. 25 MS. HARGIS: It's about half the salary. 5-27-14 bwk 48 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: About half? 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, are we talking about 3 doing that? Or -- 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I just want to make sure I 5 understood. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I think that if there's 7 one of the departments that in my mind needs a new employee, 8 it would be his, and a lot of it's the safety reason. We 9 don't allow Road and Bridge to work -- you know, be mowing on 10 the side of the road with only one employee, but yet we allow 11 Maintenance to be mowing at the park with only one employee. 12 It's not safe, and it's not doing -- 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So you're going to -- going 14 to eliminate the cleaning people on the weekend to get that 15 new employee? 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: If it works, I mean, I would -- 17 you know, if that's what needs to happen. 18 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Would you -- how would you 19 handle that, Tim? If you did away with contract services if 20 you got a new employee, could you still get everything done? 21 MR. BOLLIER: I believe so. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: How could you get everything 23 done? 24 MR. BOLLIER: There's two ways I can do that. I 25 have two people -- I have three people down there right now. 5-27-14 bwk 49 1 I have three custodians. And what I can do is I can 2 either -- I can let one come in at 1 o'clock in the afternoon 3 and work till 8 o'clock. That way, that will give that 4 person two hours in the evening. Or you can also bring them 5 in early in the morning before it's time to come to work, 6 before 8 o'clock; bring them in, give them a couple hours to 7 clean here, one person. 8 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You could work them in 9 shifts? 10 MR. BOLLIER: I would work them in shifts, yes, 11 sir. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The contract fees is two 13 employees; is that right? 14 MR. BOLLIER: It's Luis -- yes, two, with the check 15 only made to one. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What? 17 MR. BOLLIER: There's Luis and Maria's sister. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's two. 19 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's contract fees. 21 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 22 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's all you're 23 talking about? 24 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's 16? 5-27-14 bwk 50 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Mm-hmm. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: So you take that out and you 3 add another employee. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And so what's the net 5 increase? 6 JUDGE POLLARD: About another 16,000. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Another 16,000. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Another 16,000. 9 MR. BOLLIER: The hours, now, are after -- the 10 contract laborers are after hours. 11 MS. HARGIS: They aren't on the weekends. They're 12 not on the weekends. They usually come twice a week. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So if you add an employee and 14 get rid of this, it's a net 16,000 increase. Does that 15 include benefits? 16 MS. HARGIS: No -- well, it would be a decrease. 17 We already have the new employee plugged in 666, so this 18 would be a decrease. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, but I'm not talking 20 about what you have plugged in. I'm just asking about the 21 net cost. 22 MS. HARGIS: The net cost would be the salary we -- 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Plus 16, plus benefits, 24 correct? 25 MS. HARGIS: The total for that employee with 5-27-14 bwk 51 1 benefits and all is 43,000. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: How much? 3 MS. HARGIS: 43. So, 16 minus -- from 43. 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: 27. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, 27,000 difference. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we need -- I mean, 7 right now, leave it that way, and let's make a note that if 8 we delete the employee at some point down the road, we need 9 to add back the contract fees. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, yeah. 11 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And I agree with what you 12 said about safety. You can't have one out there mowing. If 13 he gets injured on a mow and he's by himself, then -- 14 MR. BOLLIER: And the way things -- way things are 15 today, our community service, there's not many community 16 service out there, where in the old days, when it comes -- 17 when it comes time to set up for that stock show and the big 18 events, we don't have anybody but us, the maintenance -- the 19 maintenance crew and B.J., and I have to call all of them out 20 there. I don't have community service at all. (Cell phone 21 ringing.) That's my phone; it can just ring, ring, ring. 22 And so that's where I'm at with that. If I have an extra 23 person, then that just -- it usually takes at least three, 24 four people to set up there out at the barn. Without four 25 people, everything out there weighs 100 pounds or more, and 5-27-14 bwk 52 1 we don't mess with anything with panels. And if we have to 2 set up for rodeos in the outdoor arena, we have to move all 3 the pens out there. We have to set up for rodeos inside the 4 arena, and that's all lifting those cattle panels, and two 5 people can't do it. One person can't do it. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Tim, what we're asking is, 7 what's the difference in where you are now with two 8 part-timers? You want to reduce that to one full-time? 9 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You're talking about now you 11 need more -- multiple people to do a single job because of 12 heavy weight, so -- 13 MR. BOLLIER: Well, during the off-season, I mean, 14 these -- what I plan on doing is putting two together, okay? 15 With the new employee and the one that I already have, to do 16 all the yard stuff outside the facilities; yardwork, cutting 17 grass, taking care of the parks, making sure the trash is 18 picked up and so forth. That'll take them all week long, or 19 probably three days. But when I need these guys out at the 20 barn for these big events and putting that stuff together, I 21 will have them, and I won't have to rely on community service 22 any more. I mean, I have been asked many times by you guys, 23 "Okay, why are you picking up out here in the yard? Why are 24 you doing this? Where's community service?" I haven't got 25 any. 5-27-14 bwk 53 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I have, really, a tougher time 2 understanding two part-time versus one full-time and all the 3 stuff that you're saying. You're just -- I'm not following 4 you. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the difference is the 6 type of work. The part-time people are custodial. The 7 full-time is a maintenance. 8 MR. BOLLIER: Custodians do nothing but clean, sir, 9 in the evening. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let me ask it. I'm in the 11 same boat as he's in. So you're going to hire a new 12 maintenance guy so y'all can be little friends out there 13 riding around on your lawnmowers, but -- and then you're 14 going to eliminate the cleaning people? Who's going to 15 clean? 16 MR. BOLLIER: The people that are cleaning now, 17 sir. I'll just -- I will make -- 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'm with you. 19 MR. BOLLIER: I'm -- 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You just got through telling 21 me you're going to eliminate them. 22 MR. BOLLIER: I'm going to eliminate the two -- the 23 outside contractors, okay? That leaves me with three 24 full-time permanent custodians. I can work shifts out of 25 those people. In other words, you know, make them -- they 5-27-14 bwk 54 1 come in, like, from 1 to 8 o'clock. That gives them three 2 hours in the evening. Or from -- do you understand what I'm 3 saying? To where they get their eight hours in. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Can you go over your capital 5 outlay? 6 MS. HARGIS: Yes, please go to capital outlay. 7 MR. BOLLIER: Capital outlay, I have $48,000 in 8 there. I have new flooring; carpet tile -- or broadloom 9 carpet for upstairs in Courtroom 1, Lobby 1, and bailiffs' 10 office, Courtroom 2 and back corridor only for $48,600. 11 That's new carpet. The carpet that's up there is coming 12 unraveled and coming loose. It's beginning to be -- it has 13 become a safety hazard. It does need to be changed. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, that's worn. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's old. 16 MR. BOLLIER: And if you go up there, when you walk 17 off the elevator, you can't help but see it. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's held together by duct 19 tape. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: When did we do that, Buster? 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I was in a coma there for a 22 second. Where are you talking about? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Upstairs. 24 MR. BOLLIER: Upstairs. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: '98? '99? 5-27-14 bwk 55 1 MR. BOLLIER: Courtroom 1, -- 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Long time ago. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: About 20 years old. 4 MR. BOLLIER: -- Lobby 1, bailiffs' office, 5 Courtroom 2, and back there -- 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Jail moved out of there in 7 '95, '96. By the time it got remodeled, you're talking 8 about -- 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Is that coma self-induced or 10 voluntary? 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Voluntary. Voluntarily 12 self-induced. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hey, Tim, on 450, repairs and 14 maintenance -- 15 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- you have a 20 percent 17 increase last year to this year. 54,000 to 65,000. 18 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. That's because -- 19 MS. HARGIS: Everything's falling apart. 20 MR. BOLLIER: That's because everything's falling 21 apart. 22 MS. HARGIS: We've got a $35,000 expense coming 23 through right now. 24 MR. BOLLIER: Mm-hmm. 25 MS. HARGIS: That's half of that. 5-27-14 bwk 56 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We've got a lot of -- hopefully 2 we'll get finished with it at some point, but lift -- small 3 lift stations. The one that they're talking about, Tim has 4 mentioned to me the other day that there's a $35,000 pump 5 they're putting out at the new detention facility. One pump 6 goes out, and it's 35,000, so it's just -- there's -- a lot 7 of our buildings are at that age -- well, two pumps. 8 MR. BOLLIER: Two pumps, muffin grinder and all the 9 -- all the valves and everything. It's 12 years old; it's 10 been there since 2002. I have talked to the City. I have 11 talked to Charlie Hastings from Road and Bridge. They have 12 all also all told me the same thing. The City usually 13 replaces parts and pumps and motors every five years. They 14 told me that we have gotten more than our money's worth out 15 of that. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So our -- 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just our stuff is -- 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- breaking. You know, it's 20 just maintenance. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, okay. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just like the Sheriff's tearing 23 up boilers all the time. 24 MS. HARGIS: We've just about blown every budget 25 that we've got right now. 5-27-14 bwk 57 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 2 MS. HARGIS: And we got three months to go. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 4 MS. HARGIS: Four months to go. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's all I need. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Are we leaving the 16,000 in? 7 MS. HARGIS: Take the 16 out, and -- 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Is he getting his other employee? 9 Are we leaving that 16,000 contract fees in? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, I -- I mean, I 11 understand -- I agree with him. It's hard to -- I'm not sure 12 I -- we need to make sure that you're not cutting yourself 13 short. You need the employee -- 14 MR. BOLLIER: I'm just -- 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- on the maintenance side. I 16 just want to make sure you have enough maintenance. If you 17 don't need that staff, we can take it out, but I wanted to 18 make sure the Court has -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree that you need a new 20 maintenance person out in the field, but you and I are going 21 to have a visit when this is over with, and you're going to 22 explain to me -- or make me happy about this, and I'm not 23 laughing. 24 MR. BOLLIER: Okay. Well, what I'm trying to do -- 25 all I was trying to do is save money there. And -- 5-27-14 bwk 58 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, you're going to -- you 2 need to sit down and look me in the eye and explain it to me. 3 MR. BOLLIER: And Maria is the one that came to me 4 and said, "Hey, we can eliminate that. If you eliminate 5 that, we can take care of that." So -- but you really got my 6 brain going in reverse here, because I'm like -- I'm -- my 7 brain's going in reverse here, because I'm like, okay, with 8 one new maintenance person, that's not going to help me out 9 in that position. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 11 MR. BOLLIER: So I see where you're looking at, and 12 I'm sitting here thinking about that. I don't know that we 13 can eliminate that, because if we do eliminate those 14 positions, that outside contract work, then you're going 15 to -- during the day, we're going to be cut short here. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what I'm -- 17 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's the question he was 18 asking. 19 MR. BOLLIER: That what you're looking for? 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, looking for an 22 explanation on how you eliminate two cleaning people and you 23 add one maintenance person, but it didn't make any sense. 24 MR. BOLLIER: I would like to keep them. You know, 25 that's -- 5-27-14 bwk 59 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why don't you really think 2 about it, and we'll look at this -- 3 MR. BOLLIER: I think we need to keep them. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We need to visit. 5 MR. BOLLIER: Yes. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: What are we going to do with the 7 budget? 8 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Leave it in there, and make a 9 note. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Leave it? 11 MS. HARGIS: Are we leaving the carpet in? 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The carpet. That's just 15 like a woman, isn't it? 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No, it's like $48,000, is what 17 it is. 18 MS. HARGIS: Just checking to make sure, and y'all 19 come back and say -- 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Pardon? 21 MS. HARGIS: I said I had to make sure that we were 22 or weren't doing the capital and the carpet. They made fun 23 of me 'cause I asked the question twice. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: I think the capital -- the carpet's 25 staying in. 5-27-14 bwk 60 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, it's in. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, it's in. 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's -- we got to replace 4 stuff that wears out. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, it's got to be. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, I do have one question. 7 Is 48,000, is that an estimate from somebody, what it costs 8 to replace -- 9 MR. BOLLIER: It's -- I have a bid right here. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, you answered my 11 question. That's all I need to know. Okay, thank you. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: You will be going out for bid 13 on that. 14 MR. BOLLIER: Yes -- well, yes, we'll have to. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Where are we? 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Where are we? 17 MS. HARGIS: The next one is 511, which is the jail 18 maintenance. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Getting close to where we need to 20 start cutting. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Fixing to drop a bombshell on 22 y'all. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's the capital outlay? 24 MR. BOLLIER: Capital outlay for the jail -- and 25 Rusty's got some new stuff he wants to add now. I have 5-27-14 bwk 61 1 85-gallon BTU boiler, $13,317.09, that I need to -- I have 2 replaced two this year. There are three, and I would like to 3 go ahead and replace the other old one so that we have three 4 new boilers there, so I don't have to worry about the other 5 one any more. Then I also have -- I have replaced three 6 sallyport doors out there; still one old one left. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Three what? 8 MR. BOLLIER: Sallyport doors. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Sallyport. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's the big garage doors. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 12 MR. BOLLIER: I would like to go ahead and replace 13 the one that I have left to replace there, and that is 14 $5,400. That gives a grand total of capital funds out there 15 for $18,717.09, is what I have. 16 MS. HARGIS: You got 28 in the budget. 17 MR. BOLLIER: 28? There was something else there. 18 MR. ROBLES: 3-inch copper lines. 19 MR. BOLLIER: The copper lines, the 3-inch copper 20 lines that I have inside the jail. We're replacing a lot of 21 those lines, and I need to keep replacing those 3-inch water 22 lines, those copper lines in the jail, and see -- 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Replacing copper with copper? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, with PVC. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: PVC. 5-27-14 bwk 62 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Replacing copper with PVC. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Sounds like a good move. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Ionization is eating little 4 bitty pinholes through that copper. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right, yeah. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And it's a nightmare on water 7 leaks. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I was wondering why -- 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All those water lines are up 10 in the ceiling. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- those items, I mean, I 13 don't know what difference it makes, but are they repairs or 14 are they capital outlay? 15 MS. HARGIS: Well, the boiler -- 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's capital. 17 MS. HARGIS: Anything over $5,000. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 19 MS. HARGIS: The boilers are 13,000 a piece. 20 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Just wherever y'all need it. I 21 mean, we need to do those, don't we? 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The issue, if I can say -- and 23 just something coming up is, of course, you have to remember 24 that jail's now 20 years old, right at 20, okay? So we're 25 having -- starting to have more and more maintenance issues 5-27-14 bwk 63 1 with copper lines, boilers, all that kind of stuff. Now, one 2 that I am really concerned about, and I found out two weeks 3 ago when we had the rain, is we had 11 leaks in our jail in 4 the roof. Tim and his guys got up there and patched as much 5 as they could. They have them doing an inspection today, and 6 just for the Court and everything, I haven't heard how many 7 leaks we had this weekend, but that roof is a flat gravel 8 roof, and it's 20 years old, and I'm really concerned about 9 when we're going to have to replace that roof. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They're guaranteed to leak. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: That's right. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that building big enough 13 to build airplanes in? (Laughter.) Thought I'd throw that 14 in, see if we couldn't get something going there. 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But that's an expense, I 16 think, that's coming that we need to be very serious about. 17 I don't know how long we can get by with what they're trying 18 to do. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well, if it's leaking, you got 20 a problem. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Especially when it's leaking 22 into light fixtures. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, it's going to keep leaking; 24 that's what flat roofs do. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, we didn't have the 5-27-14 bwk 64 1 issues with it. I know this Court and us started talking 2 about it three years ago, and that's about when we started 3 having issues. But when we had it in 11 different locations 4 two weeks ago, that really concerns me. 5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Y'all need to start looking at 6 it, I mean, seeing what options there are. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now, we had to replace -- 8 JUDGE POLLARD: What are the dimensions of this 9 roof? 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Oh, jeez, I couldn't tell you 11 right now. Probably 200 by 100 at least. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 20,000? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now, we've worked at it, and 14 the Court did some through grants and that. And the -- some 15 of the major expense lately had been getting all those 16 air-conditioner units replaced, 'cause there are 23 17 air-conditioner units up on top of that roof also. And, you 18 know, we've got pretty well most of those done, and we've got 19 a lot of stuff. But this is the only other major thing I see 20 coming. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: If it's leaking, you better 22 start making -- 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Better off fixing it sooner 24 rather than later. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's right, I agree. 5-27-14 bwk 65 1 JUDGE POLLARD: The best way to fix it is put you a 2 new peaked roof on it, but you can't do that with all the air 3 conditioners out there. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No, but you've got to do 5 something. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's a flat roof that's 7 actually about 2 foot below the side walls, okay. All the 8 way around, they're 2 foot higher than the roof. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: Swimming pool. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It can get to be that way real 11 quick. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't know why anybody would ever 13 allow those to be built. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I'd go ahead, Tim -- I'd 15 just get some estimates so we kind of know what that's going 16 to be. I don't know that it will be this year in the 17 budget -- this year's budget, but -- 18 JUDGE POLLARD: That's going to be a substantial 19 expense. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's going to be a costly 21 expense. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 20,000 square feet. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: What you're talking about is 24 eventually you're going to have to put a new roof on there, 25 period. And it needs to not be a flat roof. 5-27-14 bwk 66 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And, you know, if it's 2 something -- I mean, we all understand after this C.O., 3 there's going to have to probably be a jail expansion out 4 there at some point. If, you know, we could make it work 5 until that time, and include it in whatever C.O. that's in, 6 or the bond issue that takes in the jail expansion, and take 7 in that reroofing, all of it at that time would be the best 8 way to go. But I just don't know how much longer we can hang 9 onto that. 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Any other questions on this? 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what you were 13 referring to when you said Rusty's going to -- 14 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. He hit me with that 15 earlier. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Any other questions on this one? 18 All right. Thank you, Tim. 19 MS. HARGIS: He's got two more. 20 MR. BOLLIER: I've got two more. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 513 and 666. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: We got more? Okay. 23 MS. HARGIS: He has four. 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's where you have the new 25 employee? 5-27-14 bwk 67 1 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Now, what kind of employee 3 is this? Is this a specialized something, or somebody -- an 4 electrician or plumber or anything like that? Or just a 5 general maintenance person? 6 MR. BOLLIER: Just a general maintenance person. 7 I'm going to -- I would really like to find someone out there 8 that had some kind of license for plumbing or something like 9 that. I just don't know what's out there until I put it out 10 there. 11 MS. HARGIS: Tim and I kind of talked about this. 12 You know, we've used so much plumbing. We have to call the 13 plumbers, and we can do it ourselves, but we don't have a 14 license to do it. If we hired somebody with these licenses, 15 it would save us a lot of money, because we can do most of 16 the repairs ourselves; we just don't have a license to do it, 17 so therefore we can't do it. So, if we had somebody that -- 18 on staff that had a license, then -- an electrical license 19 and a plumbing license, we can move on down the road and do 20 all this ourselves, and just have the cost of the 50-cent 21 piece that we need to put in there, instead of the -- you 22 know, we could order our own pumps and -- you know, there's a 23 markup on all that that we get. So, we have replaced a lot 24 of stuff this year. If we had somebody with a license, then 25 we would not have had to pay that labor. 5-27-14 bwk 68 1 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Where do you think the most 2 need is, Tim? Plumbing? Electrical? 3 MR. BOLLIER: Plumbing. 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: HVAC? 5 MR. BOLLIER: Plumbing. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Plumbing is about 50 percent 7 of it, probably, in the jail. 8 MR. BOLLIER: A lot of plumbing issues around here. 9 Now, most of the stuff like leaky faucets and stuff, we can 10 fix all that, but when it comes to these lift stations, we're 11 not really supposed to touch them, 'cause we're not licensed 12 or anything. So, it's kind of hard to do some of -- 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: If you have somebody licensed, 14 too, he can sign off on work that somebody else has done. 15 MR. BOLLIER: If you can find somebody with a 16 plumbing license, plus somebody with one of these backflow 17 preventers licenses that can come in and test all our lines 18 without us you having to call Simplex, because every time 19 Simplex comes from San Antonio down here, that's $1,000. You 20 know, and if they have to fix anything, it -- it goes -- 21 skyrockets. So, that would -- you know, I would like to 22 really find somebody with some of those licenses. 23 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I'd like to see what's 24 available, because that -- I think we see it at every place. 25 School districts -- I know at Harper, they had a licensed 5-27-14 bwk 69 1 HVAC on staff that they didn't have to call and pay a trip 2 charge all the way to Harper to get it fixed. You -- 3 JUDGE POLLARD: K.I.S.D. does the same thing out 4 here; they have air conditioning, electrical, plumber and all 5 that. It saves them a bunch. 6 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I think in the long run, it 7 may cost more in one line, but it's going to save a bunch of 8 other -- 9 MR. BOLLIER: If you can find a person like that, 10 it would be to our advantage to pay a person like that a 11 little more money, because in the long run, that's going to 12 save a whole lot more money than what we're paying. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Plus what the Auditor said; 14 we're not going to have to pay the profit on the parts 15 either. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Can you get a part-time person 17 to do that that's licensed, that's -- that's working? You 18 know, sometimes you don't need a full-time licensed 19 professional to do it, especially if they can come in and buy 20 off on something that some of the other guys have done. 21 MS. HARGIS: They're still going to charge you to 22 come out. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No, I said if you have a 24 part-time licensed plumber, okay. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The problem with plumbing is, 5-27-14 bwk 70 1 it tends to be when you have the problem, you got the 2 problem. So, I mean, unless you have someone that's on an 3 on-call basis -- 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And that's a big problem with 5 the jail. You never know, and then it happens. And I'm 6 afraid if you get part-time, that person a lot of times is 7 going to have to have a full-time job somewhere, and trying 8 and get him on his way in a matter of minutes is difficult. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: That's true. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Just a thought. 11 MS. HARGIS: And then you can replace these other 12 employees that -- that may, you know, then get an electrical 13 and a plumber, and pretty soon you've got a crew that -- you 14 know, kind of like the garage situation. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right, okay. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, okay. Do you want to -- are 17 we talking about possibly taking that 16,000 out then, and 18 then increasing the new employee maybe a little more right 19 here so we can get somebody that's certified in several 20 areas? Is that what we're talking about doing? 21 MS. HARGIS: Well, we looked at -- we looked at the 22 step and grade, and really, we're not too far off. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Not very much at all, with 24 somebody that -- that might come in, 'cause some of the local 25 guys, even with licenses, don't make that much. And we 5-27-14 bwk 71 1 already start ours at better than some of the local plumbing 2 companies. So, I think -- I think we should just stick it 3 out there and see what we get first. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So you think you could get you 5 a licensed person in the area you need it most? A licensed 6 plumber as opposed to a licensed electrician? 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we could use both. 8 MS. HARGIS: Sometimes they have both. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, they have? 10 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Some of them do, not all of 11 them. 12 COMMISSIONER REEVES: A lot of times, HVAC and 13 electric would be -- 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah A/C and electric, you got, but 15 not too -- plumbing and electric doesn't usually happen. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Water and electricity don't 17 mix. 18 MR. BOLLIER: No, water and electricity don't mix. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: HVAC can do pluming, do a lot 20 of things; it depends. I'd say the most -- 21 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, so we leave it like it 22 is then? 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Even the 16,000 is in, right? 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 5-27-14 bwk 72 1 MS. HARGIS: Let us look back at what he talked 2 about, then I'll bring it back. It needs to go up a few 3 thousand, but I don't think more than five. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 6 MS. HARGIS: As I recall. Is that right? 7 MR. BOLLIER: Right. I think it was like 8 34-something, wasn't it? 9 MS. HARGIS: It wasn't much. 10 MR. BOLLIER: Wasn't much, 34-something. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Any other questions 12 from anybody on that for Tim on his -- 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 666. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. 15 COMMISSIONER LETZ: One more budget, his last one. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Wait, I had a question for Tim 17 on trash service. 18 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir? 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Big increase in trash service 20 in 2013 to the next year, a 50 percent increase. So, has 21 trash service expense gone up? 22 MR. BOLLIER: The expense -- the trash service part 23 of it has -- has gone up a little bit, but the biggest 24 problem I have now is that I cannot haul brush anywhere. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So that's what that is? 5-27-14 bwk 73 1 MR. BOLLIER: Most of that is brush. Anytime I cut 2 it, I have to take it out. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You answered my question, 4 okay. Okay, that's all I have. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Anything else on his? Anybody? 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is the utility increase, is 7 that the new building? 8 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir, I think -- I believe that 9 -- that electrical increase was due to that old building; it 10 wasn't energy sufficient. And now that we have a new 11 building, we're fixing to have another building, they should 12 both be more energy efficient. I think we should be all 13 right. 14 MS. HARGIS: We've got projected here 71. We 15 really feel like it's going to be closer to 85, so -- and 16 then bringing on the new exhibit hall, and it's bigger, I 17 think 100 is the minimum we're going to have. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: What line item are you on? 19 MR. ROBLES: 66-440. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 66-440. 21 MS. HARGIS: I'm the one that plugged that in. 22 That is just based on the current bills we're getting. The 23 current bills are running 6,000 to 8,000 a month, so multiply 24 it out. It's not, you know, going to come out. When they 25 have, you know, big fairs there, you know, the county fairs 5-27-14 bwk 74 1 there, it's high. 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: The -- one of the things we 3 always -- I mean, a lot of the events, we -- like the county 4 fair, KerrFest, it's costing us a lot of money for these big 5 events. They're good for the community and they're helping, 6 but it's -- we're putting in a bunch of money into a lot of 7 these. 8 MS. HARGIS: Because the electrical, they plug in 9 for everything. And we also, though, are going to have -- 10 have Kerrville Public Utility Company come out and look at 11 the existing show barn to see if we can -- you know, give us 12 an analysis and see if we, you know, have everything the way 13 we should have it. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. The capital outlay, Tim, 15 you had a -- that lift is in here still. Is that coming out? 16 MR. BOLLIER: I would -- yes, sir. 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 18 MR. BOLLIER: I just could not justify trying to 19 buy a used lift or a brand-new lift to have out there, just 20 to be sitting there till once or twice a year. I would still 21 like to leave some capital outlay money in there. 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: For what? 23 MR. BOLLIER: For other -- like I was talking to 24 you earlier, I'm going to -- I will probably need a new mower 25 down here before long, a new riding lawnmower. One of 5-27-14 bwk 75 1 mine -- 2 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Eight for a lawnmower? 3 MR. BOLLIER: How much? 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Eight. 5 MR. BOLLIER: Yeah, it's 8,000 to 9,000. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Going to be zero. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: 8,000? 8 MR. BOLLIER: I think that's enough, sir. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What just happened there? 10 Capital outlay went from 30 to 8? 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To eight. 12 (Low-voice discussion off the record.) 13 MR. BOLLIER: I don't need a big one like that. 14 I'm going back towards a 52-inch cut. It should be between 15 $8,000 and $9,000. 16 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, let's say 9,000. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, let's say nine. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: From eight to nine, okay. 19 MS. HARGIS: If you get an estimate, we'll plug a 20 good number in there. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, Jeannie, on utilities, 22 we're bumping it up to 100,000? 23 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: From -- 25 MS. HARGIS: Keep in mind, -- 5-27-14 bwk 76 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- 38,000? 2 MS. HARGIS: -- you only have six months worth of 3 utilities in here. We run a month behind. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Talking about previous year 5 actual is 43,000. 6 MS. HARGIS: Well, we added that big exhibit hall 7 this year. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, that wasn't in the -- 9 MS. HARGIS: I mean the show barn. And it went 10 down a little bit, because we didn't have the show barn; we 11 were building it. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. And then it came 13 online, and the bills are there. I mean, it's -- 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I think any time you have a 15 carnival out there, just the start-ups on that is going to 16 run our electric bill up; isn't that right, Tim? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We need to get KPUB to look at 18 our bill, figure out where -- and look at KerrFest and County 19 Fair and Stock Show, and figure out what -- what events are 20 costing. It shouldn't be hard to figure out. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: We don't need to be making a 22 profit, but we got to at least be paying for the place. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. And -- 5-27-14 bwk 77 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tim, the last thing in here, 2 which is -- I don't -- I haven't heard. Is River Star -- 3 MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. 4 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I presume at some point, we're 5 going to get that. Do we need to -- is it included, do you 6 think? Is there enough funds in your other line items for -- 7 MS. HARGIS: We have the insurance on it, and we 8 are paying the utilities now, so we don't have any 9 maintenance. 10 MR. BOLLIER: I would -- you know, if we get that 11 -- if we get -- we're already maintaining River Star, just 12 cutting the grass. We're not maintaining any buildings or 13 anything. 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. 15 MR. BOLLIER: The only thing that we might think 16 about doing -- and I'm glad you said something, because I did 17 not think about River Star -- is my fuel line item, which is 18 in -- I'll find it -- 513. We may have to increase that a 19 little bit; fuel, oil, and maintenance. I increased it -- 20 MS. HARGIS: It's eight. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: To 8,000? 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Because of having to take care of 23 River Star too, you need another 1,000? 24 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That -- 25 MR. BOLLIER: That should be good, 'cause I can 5-27-14 bwk 78 1 increase it a little. 2 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And this question is for the 3 Auditor again. On the utilities, some of this number at the 4 Exhibition Center includes utilities at River Star, as I 5 understand? 6 MS. HARGIS: Yeah. And it's minimal, but it's $350 7 a month. We can't understand why it's so high, but we've 8 sent them over there. But they keep those restrooms -- 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We didn't have it before, so I 10 think that's the point. 11 MS. HARGIS: But it is around $350 a month right 12 now. Yeah, I analyzed the utilities, and I was pretty 13 shocked to see how much we have gone up. But we're 14 averaging, at least for the ag facility itself, six, and 350 15 for that, and then we have other bills that go though this 16 line item. So, it's there. I mean, just the big one alone, 17 if you multiply that times -- 6,000 times 12, that's what 18 it's averaging. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. Anything else on Tim's part 21 of it? 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Not from here. 23 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. Guys, I'm sorry to tell you, 24 we're going to have to recess. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we coming back in 45 5-27-14 bwk 79 1 minutes, or tomorrow? 2 JUDGE POLLARD: When do you want to -- I got to 3 take care of some juveniles; statutorily got to have it. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's do it tomorrow. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: You've got AACOG. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We're going to AACOG 7 tomorrow. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Jon and I can take care of 9 this. And Bob. Sorry, buddy. 10 MS. HARGIS: Why don't we just wait till 4:00 and 11 see if we can finish? 12 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I won't be here, so you won't 13 have to -- it will go quicker. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: At 4:00? 15 JUDGE POLLARD: You want to come back? Let's just 16 say -- give us extra time -- come back at 4:00. 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Works for me. 18 JUDGE POLLARD: Today instead of tomorrow, okay. 19 I'm sorry. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: We can get it done in an hour. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Law says I got to do it. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Sheriff's right there; he'll 23 get you. 24 MR. DAVIS: They're not signed up, Your Honor. I 25 told them to text me whenever they've got kids in the chair 5-27-14 bwk 80 1 ready to go, so just for your information. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Just want to keep going till then? 3 What do you estimate that'll be? 4 MR. DAVIS: They're downstairs, Your Honor. I'm 5 not sure if they're waiting on attorneys or they're signed up 6 and waiting on parents. And I said for the Court's time, you 7 notify me as soon as you have the body in the chair ready to 8 go, and they haven't told me they have anyone ready yet. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: May be there in five minutes. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: They could be there in five 11 minutes. 12 MR. DAVIS: They could. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: They can work pretty fast when they 14 get in a hurry. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we started on the jail or 16 Sheriff's Department, I mean, that could run -- 17 JUDGE POLLARD: That could run a while. All right, 18 so I guess we come back in an hour? I'm sorry. 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. 20 (Recess taken from 2:55 p.m. to 4:05 p.m. 21 - - - - - - - - - - 22 (Commissioners Court workshop resumed at 4:05 p.m.; Commissioner Letz was not present.) 23 - - - - - - - - - - 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. It's 4 o'clock, and 25 Commissioners Court's back in session on May the 27th. Where 5-27-14 bwk 81 1 are we? What's the next one? 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Let's see, we're at Sheriff's 3 Department. 4 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: County Jail. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Sheriff or jail? 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: County Jail, I'm sorry. 7 MS. HARGIS: Jail is first. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Jail first? 9 MS. HARGIS: It's under Sheriff. It's the first -- 10 JUDGE POLLARD: Under the Sheriff's Department? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But we're doing jail? 12 MS. HARGIS: Jail is first. Numerical order. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay, whatever. 14 JUDGE POLLARD: Jonathan isn't coming back? 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No, he's not coming back. 16 MS. HARGIS: See the Sheriff's tab? 17 JUDGE POLLARD: I do. I've got it. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: In the old book, Jeannie, was 19 it under Sheriff? 20 MS. HARGIS: It should have been. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: In the previous book? 22 MS. HARGIS: Uh-huh. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Is it in numerical order, or 24 where -- 25 MS. HARGIS: Should be under Sheriff. 5-27-14 bwk 82 1 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: County Jail is the first page in 3 here. I've got it. 4 MS. HARGIS: Just use the new one. 5 (Discussion off the record.) 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And so we -- we don't do -- 7 we don't have contract cooks -- 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- any more. Do we have a 10 contract doctor? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have a contract for 12 medical, period, with C.H.C.M. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's not that same doctor 14 that was there? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. And then what else 17 did we contract out with? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We contract medical. We 19 contract -- the only other contract I have is commissary, 20 which doesn't involve y'all at all. And then, of course, I 21 have some maintenance contracts. Most of those, I believe, 22 are coming out of the -- I've got one -- no, the only actual 23 contract we had was contracted medical service. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 25 (Discussion off the record.) 5-27-14 bwk 83 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. We'll start -- Buster, do 2 you have questions? 3 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just went through them 4 with him, and I'm happy. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think Mr. Moser, his age 7 and senility is kicking in. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right, I've got lots of 9 scribbling. On line item 112 -- 512-112, overtime jumped up 10 a bunch last year. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Sure did. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And the reason? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's just taken a lot more -- 14 we're have having to call in people; we're having to work 15 people longer shifts. I just don't have a choice. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But what caused it to jump up 17 so much? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Population and inmate 19 attitude. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Population stayed about the 21 same. Just more drugs? 22 JUDGE POLLARD: I think he meant jail population. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Jail population and inmates is 24 requiring us -- and, you know, people on vacation. We're 25 just -- we're having to call in people. Any time you call 5-27-14 bwk 84 1 them in -- and what we're trying to do, of course, part of 2 that also was we changed to the Incode timekeeping system, 3 and it put limits on how much comp time a jailer can build up 4 before we start paying them. Because I don't like seeing 5 comp time get built up to the limits, because if that jailer 6 leaves, we have to pay them at whatever that current salary 7 is -- hourly salary, instead of what they may have earned it 8 at a year or two before. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, it's cost-wise more 10 effective? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Cost-wise, it's a lot more 12 effective. And most of the time we don't use it all, as you 13 can tell, but I'm just concerned with it. I wouldn't want to 14 drop it at all. 15 MS. HARGIS: You got a history of it, Rusty. Look 16 here. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I may not have a history, but 18 I'm concerned; I've had too many openings this year. 19 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Well, that's what I was going 20 to ask. Are you experiencing a lot of turnover? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Not a lot. I have one opening 22 now. What we have had this year is I had about two or three 23 openings in deputies this year, and I've promoted up from the 24 jail into the deputy slots, people that had the license and 25 qualifications, so it drops that jail. And then we had some 5-27-14 bwk 85 1 that are clerks. 2 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You had said something; I 3 didn't hear it exactly right, about not only the population, 4 but the attitude of the population? 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The attitude and the medical 6 itself. You know, we've had more end up in the hospital this 7 year, okay, for medical issues. And any time you have one 8 end up in the hospital, you're going to sit guard on them 24 9 hours a day in the hospital, one-on-one, and that takes 10 people to be called in to do that. Half of our overtime 11 budget actually goes into paying holiday pay, all your 12 holidays. At least over half of your entire shift work on 13 those holidays, and those are 12-hour shifts, not 8-hour 14 shifts, so you have to pay them for the holiday, and that 15 comes out of overtime. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Rusty, a couple years ago 17 there was a big increase in -- in prisoner supplies. And -- 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- was that -- that's not this 20 year, but just in the past, it jumped really big one year. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. You have -- you go 22 through -- uniforms only last so long; mattresses only last 23 so long, things like that, and it starts costing you more to 24 operate. If you look over -- prisoner supplies is 334. 25 COMMISSIONER MOSER: 334. 5-27-14 bwk 86 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Contracted medical services? 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's our -- 3 JUDGE POLLARD: Pretty good jump. That's prisoner 4 medical? 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, that's the prisoners. 6 And what they're trying to do now is, due to the mental 7 health issues, the psychiatrist that is contracted to be 8 there, Dr. Singh, has requested to double his time that he 9 can be at the jail due to the amount of patients he's having 10 to see and deal with in the jail population. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: What's his name? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Singh, S-i-n-g. He is the 13 head of psychiatry for U.T. of Texas at San Antonio Health 14 Science Center. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You and I talked about that. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, excellent. He's just -- 17 you know, and, of course, last year it jumped because we had 18 added a nurse, and added even Dr. Singh earlier in the year 19 for doing that. 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's just psychiatry; 21 that's not medical attention for a broken finger or -- 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. No. About the biggest 23 jump this year is due to psychiatry, additional hours. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That was the jump, but it 25 still does cover the other stuff, Buster, right? 5-27-14 bwk 87 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, it covers all of it, but 2 -- and they have -- they have a regular C.P.I. that's 3 accounted into that contract every year that they go by, or 4 adding to it. I can pull that real quickly, Buster. It is 5 340. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Rusty, on 487, on training, 7 just looking at trend, 12,000, 1,800, 2,600, 14,000, and 8 14,000 again. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: What was -- what was the big 11 jump from a couple -- three years before? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The cost of training itself, 13 sending jailers through taser certification, taser instructor 14 certification, and just the cost of overall training. All 15 jailers, just like peace officers, we're all required to have 16 so many hours of training per year -- per every two years. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And pepper spray. 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Pepper spray and all that. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Was that same thing true a 20 couple years ago? 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It was about 2,000, and now 23 it's -- 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Except the costs are a lot 25 more, okay? 5-27-14 bwk 88 1 JUDGE POLLARD: The people that are training them 2 are charging a lot more now. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's why I try and bring 4 some of that training here. Now, the Sheriff's office part, 5 you saw it the other day, a couple weekends ago here where we 6 brought it here to try and help that. But the costs of 7 training, as I've heard y'all going through, we don't have -- 8 I don't have a conference line item. If there is, it's zero, 9 okay? And just as you know, the cost of that training, as 10 y'all have done in other departments, is -- is high, and I've 11 got 40 employees in that jail. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah, but just looking at 13 trend, you go from 2,500 to 14,000. Previous year, it was 14 2,000. Yeah, I understand it goes up, but not by a factor of 15 six. 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Let me get through one issue 17 at a time. Do you -- you wanted to talk about contracted 18 medical. Let's finish looking at it. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I think we're through with 20 that. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, I don't think so; Buster 22 still had some questions. 23 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm still waiting on his 24 answer. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The C.P.I. that was figured in 5-27-14 bwk 89 1 the inmate contract medical for this year is 2.44 percent 2 C.P.I. in the overall contract. Dr. Singh's additional hours 3 are $19,056 dollars, okay? And then the inmate medical part 4 is $430,018.92, so that brings it all to a total of the 459 5 annually. And I don't know what to tell you, other than 6 that's contracted and that's what they do. And I do strongly 7 agree that we need Dr. Singh out there more time than what 8 he's -- what he's able to. And the problem we're having is a 9 lot of those patients that have mental issues cannot just be 10 transferred to the C.S.U. or to another facility because they 11 have current criminal charges, and all those places will not 12 take them with current criminal charges, so you're stuck with 13 them. And I hate to -- I know both judges have told me this, 14 and that is something we're going to see. In fact, I'm -- I 15 feel like I'm cutting this budget very close overall, because 16 as they have been saying, and you've been hearing the name a 17 lot, the Michael Morton Act's probably going to just about be 18 devastating to our jail, 'cause now all these people we're 19 not even going to be able to move, you know, half as fast as 20 what we're trying to move them out now. And so I'm afraid of 21 what my costs are really going to show, unless the 22 Legislature does that. 23 MS. PIEPER: It'll be devastating to our grants 24 also. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: Where can we find this Michael 5-27-14 bwk 90 1 Morton? (Laughter.) 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: He's actually -- I forget -- 3 in Comal County or Hays County. I think it was a Hays County 4 case, okay, a murder case that he was convicted of, and the 5 D.A. did not provide all of the exonerating evidence that was 6 known to the defense attorney. And that all went up on 7 appeal and came back, and I think the D.A. may have even 8 gotten charged criminally with it. The Legislature took it 9 over and they came out with a quick solution in one 10 legislative term, which is now everything has to be signed 11 off on by both the D.A. and the defense attorney, and 12 everything has to be reviewed. So, all your fast track, even 13 if that defendant stands up there and wants to say, "I did 14 what I'm accused of doing," you know, "Go ahead and let me 15 plead guilty, and sentence me to life in the penitentiary; I 16 don't care, I done it," it can't happen. So -- 17 JUDGE POLLARD: There's a saying in the legal 18 community, -- 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. But should that -- 20 JUDGE POLLARD: -- "Bad facts create bad law." 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What did you say? 22 JUDGE POLLARD: There's a saying in the legal 23 community; "Bad facts create bad law." 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: That's what happened. 5-27-14 bwk 91 1 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, yeah. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Bad facts with that D.A., and it 3 created a bad law. 4 MS. STEBBINS: The prosecutor was a judge by the 5 time this all came out. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Commissioner, on 487, -- 7 JUDGE POLLARD: Right. 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- what I had was, in '10-'11, 9 it was 15,000, was the original budget. In '11-'12, 15,000. 10 In '12-'13, 15,000. In '13-'14, 14,400. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Those were budgeted; I'm 12 looking at actuals. 12,000, 1,800, 2,600, and so far, 13 year-to-date -- may not put a lot of credit in that, but 740 14 to-date. So, it seems like 14,000 is -- 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, there's a lot more 16 coming out of that before, then. Most of the conferences 17 start at this time of year. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Why don't you cut 4,000 out, 19 make it 10,000? 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 3,990. 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you want to cut 4,000 22 out -- if you cut 4,000 out of it, I won't say I won't be 23 back here asking for more before the end of the budget year. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, deal. Okay. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't think that was a deal. 5-27-14 bwk 92 1 There wasn't any meeting of the minds there. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He said he'd be back. I said 3 see if he'll come back. So, make that 10,000, all right. 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Rusty, how short will that 5 cut you if you cut 4,000? 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have to look at where all my 7 people are on the training cycle. This may be one of those 8 years. I don't know, okay? We project it out by what it's 9 been, you know, what we've had each year before, and I try 10 and keep it in line with that, 'cause you don't know. Now, I 11 did not send my jail administrator to the conference this 12 year or any of that kind of stuff. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'm just looking at actuals. 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But next year, I'm going to 15 have to look at it. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And how much training do you 17 have, do you think, coming up between now and the end of the 18 fiscal year? Did you say this is when it's all going on? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, most of it goes on 20 between now and the end of the year. In fact, we just 21 finished -- we even operate our own jail school. We just 22 finished basic jail school last week, okay, that we sent -- 23 held here and did here with my own trainers, so that doesn't 24 cost at this point. But we will have the bills for taking 25 the state exam that they were required to take, all that kind 5-27-14 bwk 93 1 of stuff that we still have to pay, which isn't that bad, 2 okay? But a lot of it is going to be the individualized 3 trainings. I've got three more tasers ordered at this time 4 that are paid for out of donated funds, okay? And all my 5 staff have to be trained on that. And if -- whoever I'm 6 going to allow to use it, okay, has to be trained on each of 7 those, and that's about a $250 course just for that one type 8 deal. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Last three years, you averaged 10 about 6,000 per year. So -- 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's a -- 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: -- you needing 14,000 this 13 year is -- just seems high, since you're way down. 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I see, Rusty, that on 332, 15 prisoner meals -- 16 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah? 17 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Help me out. Are you 18 really -- this year you were at 210, and you're requesting 19 164? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. We -- up until this 21 year, the last number of years, that's been a contracted 22 service, okay? We were contracting; it was costing us $1.26 23 a meal to -- for inmate meals. This year we took it over 24 ourselves. This is the first year we've taken it back over, 25 and my cost right now -- on 4/9, what I went back to was 76 5-27-14 bwk 94 1 cents a meal, is what we're -- it's costing us to do it 2 in-house ourselves. I have changed the menu a little bit 3 more, so I'm averaging right now about 82 cents a meal. And 4 I figured this budget on, I believe, 92 cents a meal. 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You made a significant cut in 6 that. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Made a significant cut in 8 that. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How is your garden going? 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's going. And we -- as you 11 know, Clay Barton, my chief deputy -- we took over, thanks to 12 -- well, it's Kevin and then Jason, we took over the old 13 juvenile facility kitchen. We got it all back up and 14 inspected, health certificates on it and everything else, and 15 we use some of our people that went through our citizens 16 academy as volunteers, and we will be hauling produce over to 17 them, 'cause there's a walk-in cooler and processing station 18 to where we can process all the produce ourselves, and 19 package it and freeze it. H.E.B. has donated to us a slicer 20 and some other things like that to where we will be able to 21 use more and more of that produce in-house, but I will still 22 be donating a lot of produce to the Dietert center, 'cause it 23 goes to their Meals on Wheels program. I think last year we 24 donated over 8,000 pounds to K'Star children's facility and 25 to -- oh, the advocacy -- you know, the women's shelter, and 5-27-14 bwk 95 1 also we've started donating some to C.A.M. And I'd like to 2 keep those up, 'cause the inmates do it out like they're 3 giving back a little bit more to it, too. It's been a good 4 program, but we also want to be able to use more and more 5 in-house. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: You were talking about trying to 7 get four more deputies, and where is that? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's going to come in your 9 next one, the Sheriff's budget. We'll talk about it then. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Any other questions on my jail 12 budget? 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It's just amazing to me to 14 remember what the jail was like over here, and where you've 15 come to now. I mean, you -- he actually has guys out there 16 that say, "I love my job." I love -- you know, and I 17 thought, "What in the hell's wrong with you people?" 18 (Laughter.) I mean, it's not a happy place to be. But those 19 -- those people love working out there. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: A lot of them do. I think a 21 lot of it's attitude. A lot of it -- maybe a little bit of 22 it's me with support for them, but, you know, a lot of it 23 also, Buster, is -- the one thing I grew up with, especially 24 with my mom, was it didn't cost a lot of money to stay clean. 25 And I've got all the free labor out there I need to keep that 5-27-14 bwk 96 1 place clean, and that means a lot when you're working in that 2 environment of what you're working in, okay? And I have to, 3 you know, give Tim -- Tim's got one man assigned out there 4 that helps with a lot of the maintenance issues, and it -- 5 that means a lot. And this county has done a lot of going 6 from, even when I started, a jailer salary of 14,000 a year 7 to what they are now. So, you know, it's just -- 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, that's the only thing I 9 have. Just -- 10 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't have anything. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't -- I propose you cut 12 the training. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: One other item. In years 14 past, we've talked -- you've told us horror stories about 15 needing the ambulance services. Is that -- is that the same 16 -- I mean, where is -- how do we charge for an ambulance ride 17 these days? 18 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: They're now sending their 19 bills to the contract medical, but most of them are over $800 20 a piece, $800 to $1,000. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, they come out to the 22 jail and get a sick person and take them to the hospital, and 23 it's $800 for that? 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: At least. Yeah, we try and 25 transport the ones that we can ourselves, okay, that are not, 5-27-14 bwk 97 1 you know, in extreme chest pains or something like that, 2 because they're -- just a, you know, hurt arm, hurt leg, 3 we'll transport them ourselves. Medical makes that call; we 4 don't, okay? It's just on the advice of the medical staff 5 whether we can transport or whether EMS should be called. 6 But, yeah, it's -- city of Kerrville is not cheap when you're 7 dealing with ambulance service. There -- there was a lot of 8 push, you know, with Obamacare, okay, that it should extend 9 to county jail inmates, and put them all on Obamacare and let 10 Obamacare pay for all this stuff. And that's -- there's some 11 states starting to do that. But in Texas, there's an issue 12 with that, because right now the way the law is in Texas, if 13 they're on Social Security benefits, like a lot of them, and 14 they come to jail, we're required to report that. It reports 15 automatically, and those Social Security benefits get 16 temporarily suspended as long as they're in jail, okay? 17 If they're on -- and the part that's bad, if 18 they're V.A. patients, if they're veterans, okay, they'll pay 19 for the first prescription or so, but after that, their 20 benefit gets suspended while they're in jail. Or if they're 21 M.H.M.R. patients, okay, they immediately get suspended while 22 they're in jail, so all that cost gets put back on the 23 counties to have to take care of. But under -- and because 24 of that, since the state has that where Social Security gets 25 suspended while they're in jail, you can't get them to where 5-27-14 bwk 98 1 they qualify for Obamacare, 'cause they're not allowed to 2 have those deals. But that's Texas right now, and so I don't 3 know whether that will change in the future or not to put 4 them all on Obamacare insurance. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sorry I asked. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: Any questions? 7 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I'm fine. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. Any other questions of 9 him on this -- what he's presented so far? All right, let's 10 move along. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay, Sheriff's Office budget. 12 The first thing I think we should talk about is the four 13 officers, because that can affect -- as you've seen in the 14 letter that I sent y'all, okay, there are a number of line 15 items that get affected by those four deputies. I've sent 16 you a letter with the justification. And we have not added 17 any new patrol positions since 2001-'02 budget. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And this essentially gives you 19 one more person out in the county? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Gives me one more person, is 21 what four people will do. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay? Because we have the 24 four shifts, it allows me one more. As you heard even just 25 this morning, right now, if there is nobody in training, 5-27-14 bwk 99 1 nobody out, and nobody on vacation or whatever or ill, I have 2 five officers working for 1,100 square miles for the county, 3 okay? Normally, it ends up being about four. And what I'm 4 asking is one more officer per shift to get that to six, 5 which would normally put us to five. If you look back at 6 those -- the drafts that you had asked me to do, -- 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hmm? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- we tried to do that of just 9 the calls for service. Now, in '01 we had 6,294 calls for 10 the year, okay? In 2013 it was 12,975. It's over doubled, 11 and I haven't added any patrol personnel. It's getting -- 12 and what really -- where it hurts is if you -- if one of my 13 patrolmen arrest a DWI, one DWI, he's going to be off the 14 road for a minimum of three hours at least, just doing his 15 paperwork, getting that person taken care of because of all 16 the new rules. And if he refuses to blow, okay, in the 17 intoxilizer, then he's going to be -- and he has to do a 18 blood search warrant, he's going to be off the road the rest 19 of the shift, because you've got to actually draw up a search 20 warrant, get a judge to sign that search warrant, take that 21 person to the hospital, get the blood drawn, return the 22 search warrant, and we'll take him off the road. 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Rusty and I spent a long time 24 talking about this the other day. I -- I support his 25 request. 5-27-14 bwk 100 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I know it's a drastic expense, 2 but I don't know what else to do. I feel we've all tried to 3 keep it to where we can, but times are -- are just -- I'm at 4 the point I got to have more patrolmen. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did you talk about 6 population growth while I was gone? 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 8 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Talked about number of calls. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Number of calls. Which is 10 tied to population, I'm sure. 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Sure. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is the population of 13 this place? 14 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Out in the county, about 15 twenty -- almost 27,000. 26,000-something out in the county. 16 We have a larger population in the county than you do in the 17 city of Kerrville. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Hasn't increased a lot, but 19 the number of calls he has is -- 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Number of calls went from -- 21 the last time we added deputies, went from 6,294 to 12,975. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's the important number. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I don't want our department to 24 get -- and maybe someday it will. I hope it's after I 25 retire, but I do not want to see the department, long as I'm 5-27-14 bwk 101 1 there, to get to the point where when somebody calls a 2 burglary in, and they do like in San Antonio and take it over 3 the phone, and say, "Contact your insurance company." That 4 doesn't solve crime. 5 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So if we leave that in, then 7 yes, I need to stay with the budget that I've got. I gave 8 y'all a sheet in there that if you do away with the four 9 deputies that I've asked for, then those other -- one, two, 10 three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine -- ten line items 11 can also be reduced by certain amounts, and are shown right 12 in there. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So what we have here, though, 14 reflects the additional employees? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It reflects all the associated 16 costs. I don't know if Jeannie added the actual deputies 17 into the salary line item, okay. 18 (Ms. Hargis nodded.) 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It's there? 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: She says it is. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: What I'm looking at -- and I 23 guess it's up there. The additional employees, 235,750, is 24 that just salary, or is that -- or is that everything? 25 MS. HARGIS: That's everything. 5-27-14 bwk 102 1 COMMISSIONER REEVES: That's FICA, everything in 2 the 235? 3 (Ms. Hargis nodded.) 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now, it is not the -- it is 5 the salary, FICA, insurance and all that, correct? Okay. 6 But it is not the uniforms, the vehicle, radio equipment, 7 operating equipment, which is bulletproof vest and vehicle 8 gas and oil that it would also take up. And that's all in 9 that letter that I attached in your budget book. 10 COMMISSIONER REEVES: At this time, I'd like to see 11 if we can keep it. I'm worried about revenues, but I don't 12 want to strike it till we're sure. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I'm with you. 14 COMMISSIONER REEVES: As just -- just as I said 15 this morning, where it really jumped out to me -- and just in 16 passing, I think you and I have talked, Commissioner Baldwin, 17 that we noticed this almost two weeks ago when I -- when 18 there were at least three, and I don't know how many we had 19 out there that night, but that made the rest of the county -- 20 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uncovered. Well, I came to 21 the conclusion years ago that law enforcement is just 22 expensive, period. It's expensive. And you can like that or 23 you can dislike that; it doesn't matter. But to me, it boils 24 down to one question, and that is do you want bad people 25 locked up, or do you want them walking around the street with 5-27-14 bwk 103 1 your family? 2 COMMISSIONER REEVES: You got to take care of 3 people. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I'm for leaving the new 5 additional employees in. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do too, and that's 7 something that it would be easy to come back and revisit once 8 we see how much income -- 9 JUDGE POLLARD: We've got to look at the revenue 10 side. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. If we start whacking 12 on it there, boy, I'll beat y'all over there. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I understand that. I'm 14 just saying that it is time. Now, one of the other big -- 15 the capital outlay, 570, in the same budget is the other -- 16 second biggest reflection to adding these officers, because 17 that is also adding more vehicles, and that cost would be 18 about 172,000 for the vehicles. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Rusty, it's a small item, but 20 220, employee medical -- 21 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have to look. 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Employee medical exam. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes? 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Big jump in that. Is that for 25 the new -- because of the new employees? 5-27-14 bwk 104 1 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. Employee medical exam, 2 that jumped $2,080, and that would -- that would be the four 3 new employees. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: On that part of the jump. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because every new employee has 8 to have a psychological, physical, drug screen, TB test. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, thanks. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Did you talk about 570? 11 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I said vehicles, yes. 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's vehicles? 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's vehicles, part of it. 14 That's five vehicles in there, 'cause we had one that we did 15 not -- it's part of the C.O. that we were needing to still 16 replace one. But four of the vehicles, the 172,000 in there 17 is for the four vehicles. 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're still talking Tahoes? 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: And another question on, I 21 guess, radio -- radio equipment, on 410. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's because of the new -- 24 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, 410. I raised it. 25 Actually, what that is is part of the radio equipment; it's 5-27-14 bwk 105 1 two portable radios. I still have a couple extras, okay, but 2 those portable radios per officer are $3,000 a piece. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So I've added two in there, so 5 that's $6,000 just to cover two of the four new officers. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Got you. Thank you. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But operating equipment, 8 Mr. Moser, before you get it, on 469 -- 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 569 -- I mean 569, is where I 11 pay for bulletproof vests. Those vests are a little over 12 $700 a piece. Four of those, so it upped that one by about 13 $2,800. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Can you get me one of those? 15 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: They don't make them that big. 17 (Laughter.) But they're -- 18 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We talked about one time of 19 getting some chicken wire and putting it across here. That 20 was back in the good old days. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: All right, anybody have any further 22 questions on any of the Sheriff's stuff? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: He answered all mine. 24 MS. HARGIS: He's not through yet. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Nope. Now I have courthouse 5-27-14 bwk 106 1 security. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: How about Sheriff's annex? 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Oh. Well, I have it after 4 that. We can do it before, whichever way you want. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I am at courthouse security. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 7 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oops, no. Annex comes 8 first. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. 10 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Annex first. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Jeannie, where is that? 12 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 77. Page 77. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I don't have pages. 14 MS. HARGIS: Yeah, the annex is first. Annex is 15 Page 77. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Got it. 17 MS. HARGIS: It's just utilities mostly, and 18 insurance. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The only thing I've changed on 20 it is $840 in utilities. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Do you have any questions or 22 problems? 23 COMMISSIONER MOSER: No. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No. 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: No, I'm fine. 5-27-14 bwk 107 1 JUDGE POLLARD: I don't either. Let's move on. 2 MS. HARGIS: Then 29 should be right behind that, 3 and the first page, which is 140, is the revenue. And then 4 the second page is expenditures. Again, this is a 5 stand-alone fund. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Part of it. 7 MS. HARGIS: We have to put tax money here to 8 offset what fees we don't get. 9 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And the biggest jump is, of 10 course, I've put in there 25,000 for security improvements. 11 And I will read you from the estimate I got on what that is. 12 Relocate the double-door entrance of Courtroom Number 1 to 13 the side, past the screening area. If you've noticed where 14 we were able to put up two metal detectors, if we have that 15 entrance on that same side, it allows us to run those metal 16 detectors with not more than two people, and that will keep 17 them -- everybody in a certain area that they've already gone 18 through a metal detector, and don't have to go back through 19 it. Relocate the electrical to conform with the city codes. 20 In there, included are moving of the light switches, exit 21 signs, and plugs. Thermostat would also be relocated. 22 Repair walls where the door was removed. That will make it 23 look the same. Patch sheetrock. Electrical was removed. 24 Use wood materials from walls that receive doors to patch 25 walls where the door was removed. Trying to make everything 5-27-14 bwk 108 1 look the same, you know, so that -- 'cause the inside of the 2 courtroom, you want the back of it to look like the rest does 3 now. 4 Remove two existing glass secure doors and frames, 5 and install new doors and frames that would closely match the 6 courtroom doors. Make those solid doors, not glass doors. 7 Erect one wall across the hall past the witness room, and 8 install a third door. But that is -- we have no way of 9 separating witnesses from suspects in those hallways, and it 10 also leads those type of people to have full access of 11 everything back behind the courtrooms that we're trying to 12 prevent, especially C.P.S. courts, where you end up with mom 13 and daddy that don't get along all in the same courtroom, and 14 we're trying to keep those separate. That total cost -- that 15 estimate that I have gotten is, as of last week -- 'cause 16 relocating the doors as described above, the door relocation 17 is $5,990. Cost for the three new doors and wall is $14,275. 18 So -- and I had done this estimate before to get the budget 19 turned in on time, so I estimated $25,000 for the cost. Now, 20 the other costs that are not part of this estimate is, once 21 we make solid core doors up there, then Becky's office and 22 the other lady's office that do have to let people in those 23 doors and see who's coming, to see the judges, will have to 24 extend that security camera system. That will put a monitor 25 on their desk and a camera at those door entrances with a 5-27-14 bwk 109 1 push button to be able to control those doors so they can see 2 who's on the other side of the door before they let them in. 3 COMMISSIONER REEVES: And this estimate did not 4 include what the -- 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Cameras. 6 COMMISSIONER REEVES: The cameras, you didn't ask 7 for? 8 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No. No, that's a different 9 company. Guardian that does all our security stuff would 10 have to do that. 11 COMMISSIONER REEVES: So, what was your estimate? 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, I have 25,000 in there. 13 I think the company I got to give us the estimate is going to 14 be right at 20,000, and that other is probably going to eat 15 up most of that 5,000. But the other part, if y'all want to 16 move what the Judges were wanting, I do think that needs to 17 be done. And most of them had, like, 2,000 in their budgets. 18 If you want to move it over, though, part of that is Mickey 19 that greets people first when they come in when he's there; 20 he's got a thicker glass, but he does not have in any way, 21 shape, or form bulletproof glass, okay? I don't intend on 22 replacing it with bulletproof glass. But, you know, below 23 all he's got is sheetrock, so I do recommend that we, down 24 below, put steel plate there, steel plate at each of the 25 Judge's benches behind them, okay, and in all the courtrooms 5-27-14 bwk 110 1 with that, you know, whether it's yours downstairs or County 2 Court at Law. Because one of the things that courthouse 3 security -- we have to worry about is it takes an officer 4 tied up just to protect that judge, 'cause that is one of the 5 main targets in the courtroom. And so if I've got a way to 6 secure the Judge by just dropping out of the seat, then I'm 7 doing a lot better. 8 The other things that we have done, I think Judge 9 Pollard was part of it, and in case of -- and it's just 10 trying to be prepared. I pray none of this ever happens, but 11 in trying to be prepared for an active shooter situation, we 12 have -- I have two officers that are now part of the training 13 that we do send them through that's more expensive that are 14 now certified instructors in the accurate shooter courses. I 15 have two officers now who are instructors, but we also 16 brought in the main company that does it for all over the 17 United States last -- last weekend, weekend before, and we 18 did do an active shooter training course in this courthouse 19 on a Saturday and Sunday. So, there were -- there were 20 paintball marks all over the walls they had to clean up, but 21 it was done. I have one more scheduled training course for 22 inside the courthouse; we may move it to the schools, but we 23 also intend on doing them at the schools when summer lets out 24 so that we can get all of the officers in the county trained 25 in what is now the best approach to an active shooter 5-27-14 bwk 111 1 situation. 2 JUDGE POLLARD: Y'all know what he means by an 3 active shooter? 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Mm-hmm. 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 6 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You know, used to, the old 7 philosophy before Columbine was, you know, get there, secure 8 the perimeter, and wait for SWAT. And we saw what happened 9 in Columbine. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: They killed everybody and killed 11 themselves, and it was over when SWAT got there. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So -- but what they're doing 13 now is -- is fully -- you know, first officer on the scene 14 better go, and he's got to know how he can try and best 15 protect himself. It does put them in a lot of danger, but 16 that's what they get paid for. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: Go where the sound of the gunfire 18 is and stop it. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's it, period. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: That's what, basically, their 21 instructions are. 22 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: So when we're having to deal 23 with those, the more security that we can build into the 24 building itself, the better and easier it is for the 25 officers. I know we've sent -- and the one we had here at 5-27-14 bwk 112 1 the courthouse, it's not just my officers, okay? I 2 invited -- and we sent some to P.D. officers through it, 3 'cause they may be close to the courthouse. I sent several 4 of the Adult Probation officers through it, because they're 5 in the courthouse. We put the constables through it, okay, 6 and then all my warrant guys and Charlie and them through it, 7 because they're the ones that will primarily -- 8 JUDGE POLLARD: How many were there in there? I 9 was -- 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We limited it at 25. 11 JUDGE POLLARD: Did you? I thought there was more 12 than that. 13 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: No, we had to cut class size. 14 I can't deal with more than 25 at a time. These are just 15 things that cost a lot of money. 16 MS. BOLIN: They were leaving as I was leaving. I 17 told them that's the safest Saturday I've ever been up here. 18 Then they laughed at me and said, "Well, we don't have any 19 guns." I said, "All the Sheriff's vehicles here will deter 20 anybody." 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Parking lot was full on that side 22 of the courthouse. 23 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It was a good course. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: It was. 25 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: From everything I've heard, 5-27-14 bwk 113 1 everybody -- 2 JUDGE POLLARD: I was real impressed with it. 3 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- learned a lot. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: You were there? 5 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, for a couple hours. There's 6 a part of it they get to after the first two hours, it's 7 police officers only. Law enforcement only, and they kicked 8 me out. 9 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I see. 10 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But all we can do is be 11 proactive instead of reactive in that type of situation, and 12 that's what I'm trying do with this budget. Now, it doesn't 13 take care of a lot of things in the courthouse, which I wish 14 it did, like this floor, okay. But the way the courthouse is 15 designed, these type of security features, it's going to be 16 real hard to design this courthouse in a way that I can put 17 everybody through a metal detector coming into the 18 courthouse. There are just too many entrances and exits. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: Too many doors. 20 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And the flow would be, you 21 know, a nightmare. So all we can do is -- is beef up that 22 part. And, yes, there will be a time, gentlemen, when I'll 23 have to probably ask for more courthouse security personnel, 24 but right now I have two full-time personnel here. And if I 25 ask for another one of those before I start adding to patrol, 5-27-14 bwk 114 1 I'm going to end up with more security in the courthouse than 2 I have on the streets in the county, and I'm not ready for 3 that yet. 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, they got to trade out a lot 5 and send a lot of people in just every time I hold court down 6 there. 7 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah. We're -- 8 JUDGE POLLARD: I've had some court sessions down 9 there where I've had as many as four different bailiffs. One 10 comes in; he's got to leave, another one comes in, and they 11 just keep trading off. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I have to rotate my civil 13 division, my warrants division, transport division usually to 14 keep -- because a lot of times, we may have four or five 15 courts going at one time. 16 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah. 17 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That two people can't do. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 19 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's where I'm at. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 21 JUDGE POLLARD: Maybe that wasn't too bad a trade, 22 on your deal for reduction -- reduction from -- what was it, 23 $4,000? 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 25 JUDGE POLLARD: And you get four more employees, 5-27-14 bwk 115 1 maybe. 2 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If I can get four more 3 officers and trade out 4,000 for jail deal, then I'll -- 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Done. 5 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- I'll agree to that. That 6 wasn't too bad. I still -- you know, a lot of the jail stuff 7 was the hotel rooms, just like any other conference and 8 school, okay. When they're having to send, you know, men and 9 women through it, you can't make them all share the same 10 hotel room. 11 MS. HARGIS: You've got three more to go. 12 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I don't have three more. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Crime victims. 14 MS. LAVENDER: I thought you'd never get through. 15 Jeez. Well, I have good news; we got the grant this year. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. 17 MS. LAVENDER: We don't have the official paperwork 18 on it, but when we went to the grant hearing, we were number 19 one, so it would be really strange for the governor's office 20 not to fund number one. So, we're going to get about not 21 quite $50,000 -- 22 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yay. 23 MS. LAVENDER: -- on the grant, which we said was 24 60 percent of the money that we'd asked for previously. And 25 both Gillespie and Bandera County have agreed to kick in on 5-27-14 bwk 116 1 the match, so we'll probably get about, I'd say, 6,000, maybe 2 a little more, from those two counties that'll contribute 3 into it. So, that's my good news for the day. 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, all your things down here 5 where it says loss of grant, loss of grant, that goes away? 6 MS. LAVENDER: Right. Right. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Superb. 8 MS. LAVENDER: What we did this last year, when we 9 didn't have the grant, was we moved some of the stuff over to 10 the Indigent Health budget, so we can make some adjustments 11 in that. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, what is -- what is -- do 13 we know what that is going to be, then, with those? 14 MS. LAVENDER: What? 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Reductions. 16 MS. LAVENDER: The budget is correct on the Crime 17 Victims. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 19 MS. LAVENDER: That you have. 20 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. All right. 21 MS. LAVENDER: Right, Ms. Hargis? 22 MS. HARGIS: Yes. 23 MS. LAVENDER: Yes. 24 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 25 MS. LAVENDER: Numbers may change an little bit 5-27-14 bwk 117 1 when we find out how much Bandera and Gillespie pay, but it 2 will be minimal. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: But it says in here, like on 4 310, it says, restores funding lost because of the loss of 5 the grant. But now you're saying you got the grant. Am I 6 misunderstanding that? 7 MS. LAVENDER: Okay. When we had to put the budget 8 together, I didn't know that I was going to get the grant, 9 and so those numbers that were there originally were based on 10 not getting the grant. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Right. 12 MS. LAVENDER: We got the grant. 13 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So the 77,000 gets reduced? 14 MS. HARGIS: No, it just gets matched with revenue. 15 The revenue offsets it. It's neutral, in other words. 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, I see. Got you. 17 MS. HARGIS: Not all of it, but most of it. 18 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay, I'm with you. 19 MS. HARGIS: Then she has the Indigent Services, 20 which is right behind there, Fund 50. 21 MS. LAVENDER: If you'll remember, this started out 22 as Indigent Health Department, and then it kind of morphed 23 over the last couple years into Indigent Services when we 24 took on the responsibility of screening the applications for 25 the Court-appointed attorneys for the judges. And we do -- I 5-27-14 bwk 118 1 think I counted up in March, and we'd already done 460 of 2 them in mid-March, since the first of -- yeah. And I imagine 3 now we've done probably close to 600 of them, and we're doing 4 them in the office where people come in. We get them from 5 the jail every day. Either they bring them to us, or more 6 often we go pick them up at the Sheriff's Office in the 7 afternoon or early -- late morning, and we make our phone 8 calls and make our recommendations to the judges. And then 9 on court days, now that we've doubled up on court days in 10 both courts to four days a month, either I -- mostly I, but 11 once in a while Mary Lou will go up and actually interview 12 people live the morning of court to determine whether they're 13 qualified for Court-appointed attorneys. 14 I don't know that we've saved a lot, but we kind of 15 brought a control to the spending of it, because it's -- it's 16 kind of a moving target. We don't know -- I think Michael 17 Moore, like they've referred to, is going to have some effect 18 on this, too. But for now, we're kind of holding our own on 19 the indigent defense. And then after the first of the year 20 this year, we were asked to take on the pauper burial 21 decisions also, so that's added a little bit of effort to our 22 -- our office. On the Indigent Health -- or Indigent 23 Services budget, there's a couple things I'd like to point 24 out to you. I had a new salary request that we move Mary Lou 25 up one more step. If there's money available, I would like 5-27-14 bwk 119 1 to do that, since we are taking on a lot more responsibility 2 down there. She does a lot of work, does a lot of telephone 3 calling on these applications and stuff. 4 In light of the fact that we did get the budget -- 5 the grant, I think we can reduce a couple of things. One is 6 the postage, because now we have the Indigent Health postage 7 and the Crime Victims postage together. This last year, I 8 bought little stamps out of last year's grant money, and so 9 that's carried us over, and so we're good on postage this 10 year, so I think we can reduce that line item maybe back down 11 to 800 and be real safe. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: So, a reduction of 2,300? 13 MS. LAVENDER: You've got $1,000. 14 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, I'm sorry, I was on the 15 wrong one. 16 MS. LAVENDER: $1,000 on the postage. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: I see -- 18 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Actually got 1,200. 19 JUDGE POLLARD: I got 1,200. 20 MS. LAVENDER: 1,200, okay. What I have here is 21 1,000. You can still reduce it down to 800. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay. 23 MS. LAVENDER: We'll be real good with that, 'cause 24 we're going to use up the rest of what we have this year, and 25 then that'll carry us over. And then on the office supplies, 5-27-14 bwk 120 1 again, because we were combining the two budgets this year, I 2 think we can reduce that one down, probably back down to -- 3 what do you have on your list, 3,500? 4 JUDGE POLLARD: 3,500, all right. 5 MS. LAVENDER: I think you can probably reduce that 6 one to 25 and be real safe. And then on the lease copier, 7 because that's also part of the grant, you can reduce that 8 one by $540. 9 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Reduce it to? 10 MS. LAVENDER: No, down by. 11 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: By. 12 MS. LAVENDER: Yeah, by. 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What is that figure? 14 MR. ROBLES: 1,210. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How much? 16 COMMISSIONER MOSER: It will be 1,210. 17 JUDGE POLLARD: 1,210 is right. 18 MS. LAVENDER: 1,210. And I might point out to 19 you, I think on one of those days when we were all tired I 20 made the announcement, but maybe you want to think about it 21 again, that since April 1st, the state law says that if a 22 jail inmate or a Juvenile Detention Center inmate is from out 23 of county, that we have to put them on our indigent health 24 program if they qualify. And I don't know how that would 25 affect Rusty's jail health budget, but that's something we 5-27-14 bwk 121 1 might want to look at. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, absolutely. 3 MS. LAVENDER: Is he -- 4 SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Mine's under contract, so my 5 costs are set, and if we go over that, it could -- we could 6 have to pay something. And that's why each year, under other 7 medical, we budget about 30,000, 35,000 to cover those 8 overages. 9 MS. LAVENDER: And that Indigent Health budget's 10 just, again, like a moving target; we don't know from year to 11 year what kind of expenses we're going to have right now. We 12 don't have a lot of people on the program, and that's -- you 13 know, that's good for the county, money-wise. But we don't 14 have any way to look into the future to know what's going to 15 happen. Next meeting, I'm going to bring you a revised 16 Indigent Health policy that the State's made some changes in 17 what we can require, and I think that's going to also be to 18 our advantage. In a couple weeks, we'll bring that to you. 19 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Going to line items -- you've 20 probably explained this to me, but I've forgotten. The big 21 jump from 2012 to 2013, you know, was -- you know, jumped 22 $100,000 between these three line items, and that was -- I 23 think you explained it to me, but I don't remember. 24 MS. LAVENDER: That's the moving target. We don't 25 know. That's something we have no control over, is how many 5-27-14 bwk 122 1 people are inpatient hospital or outpatient hospital or 2 prescription drugs. And we have to -- we have to set aside 3 8 percent of our general revenue for indigent health, and so 4 you just pick a number and put it in that formula, and hope 5 you don't spend it. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Yeah. Well, these were 7 actuals, so, I mean, they're -- 8 MS. LAVENDER: Right. It's because we had several 9 large claims those years. 10 COMMISSIONER MOSER: I see. 11 MS. LAVENDER: One claim can be as much as 30,000. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. 13 MS. LAVENDER: So if you have two claims a year, 14 that's $60,000 just on one patient or two patients. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Well -- 16 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does -- the salary increase 17 for the Indigent Health care lady, how does that fit in with 18 the step and grade? 19 MS. LAVENDER: Well, she's a 16 now, and it would 20 put her to a 17. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: She's a 16 even? 22 MS. LAVENDER: Well, she's a 16.1, I think, or -- I 23 don't know. I don't have that memorized. That's a Dawn 24 question. 25 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: See, 16.1 or -- let's say 5-27-14 bwk 123 1 she's a 16.1, so you want to take her to the 17.1. Does that 2 fit with everybody else in the county of that kind of work? 3 I mean, I hesitate about calling somebody a secretary. 4 MS. LAVENDER: There is no one else in the county 5 with that kind of work, is the problem. 6 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Has it been identified in 7 our step and grade program? 8 MS. LANTZ: When they did the job description 9 review, according to whatever was submitted, that's what they 10 came up with, that grade. And -- 11 MS. LAVENDER: And we've added additional -- we 12 didn't have the pauper burial stuff in there at that time, 13 so -- and if you don't want to do it, that's fine, but just 14 think about it. 15 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's not the point. 16 That's not the point. But I just want to do it right if 17 we're going to do it. 18 MS. LANTZ: I think they can take it across instead 19 of down. 20 MS. LAVENDER: Yeah. 21 MS. LANTZ: You know, on the step and grade. 22 MS. LAVENDER: One step instead of going -- I mean 23 one -- 24 MS. LANTZ: Yeah. Instead of moving it down, he's 25 saying go across. 5-27-14 bwk 124 1 MS. LAVENDER: Okay. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know if I'd talk 3 about the pauper burial thing if I were you. 4 MS. LAVENDER: Okay. 5 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I mean, it's -- we had a run 6 on it because of the -- 7 MS. LAVENDER: You had. 8 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- the changing of the guard 9 here, and they were just taking advantage of us. And now 10 we've got the pulling guard from the Tivy Antlers of 1955, 11 and they can't do it any more, so it's not a -- it's a moot 12 point, I think. 13 MS. LAVENDER: Okay. 14 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Almost a dead issue, isn't 15 it? I mean -- 16 MS. LAVENDER: That's a bad word. (Laughter.) 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, sorry. 18 MS. LAVENDER: It's not a -- it's not an unknown 19 issue, let's put that it way. We've had applicants that 20 we've denied since we took it over. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 22 MS. LAVENDER: It's not a -- it's not an issue 23 that's not going to come up again. 24 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But it's not -- we had that 25 run on it there for a couple of months. 5-27-14 bwk 125 1 MS. LAVENDER: Right. 2 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we all got quiet about 3 it, and -- 4 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Where is it in the book, 5 Jeannie? 6 MS. HARGIS: It's under mine, under County Auditor. 7 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Oh, okay. 8 MS. HARGIS: It's 409, page 18. We already looked 9 at it. I wondered why y'all put it back on here when we 10 looked at 409 last time. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Just want to look at it again. 12 MS. HARGIS: It's -- I just had it. It's about 13 midway down, 10-409-404. So far, we've spent 3,750, which is 14 more than we've spent, but we've got it under control now, so 15 I think probably we can probably, I think, cut that in half 16 now, back down to 6,000. So, about $750 a person. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't have any idea. 18 MS. HARGIS: That's what the current charge is that 19 we have with the funeral home, 750. But I believe 20 Commissioner Baldwin is right; I think that is really what 21 happened. But do I think watching it helps. 22 JUDGE POLLARD: All these costs for people on 23 indigent care and appointing ad litems and all that, I 24 just -- I just heard on the news that we have fewer people 25 employed and working and paying taxes now than we had in 1978 5-27-14 bwk 126 1 in this country. It's got to come to an end. Can't keep 2 doing it. 3 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Something's going to come -- 4 JUDGE POLLARD: Can't keep doing it. This ship's 5 sinking, boy. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Something's going to come to 7 an end. Okay, County Treasurer. 8 MS. HARGIS: Okay. We got the Treasurer, and then 9 we're done. 10 MS. LAVENDER: Yeah. 11 MS. HARGIS: And -- 12 MS. LAVENDER: Anybody have any other questions? 13 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I've already started 14 drinking. (Laughter.) 15 MS. HARGIS: He didn't share. County Treasurer, 16 Page 50. 17 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Page 50? 18 MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm, County Treasurer tab. 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, that's not working. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Mine jumps from 3 to 158. 21 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. 22 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Right in front of the Tax 23 Collector, Judge. 24 JUDGE POLLARD: Okay, I'm just looking for a tab. 25 (Discussion off the record.) 5-27-14 bwk 127 1 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah, all right. Got it. 2 COMMISSIONER MOSER: There we are. Question on 3 conferences. A big jump in 2012 and 2013, by a factor of 4 three. Is that because that's when you came in? 5 MS. SOLDAN: That's when I came into office. 6 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Okay. And so you're asking 7 for 5,000 now, so the same as the actual almost of last year. 8 MS. SOLDAN: Right. 9 MS. HARGIS: Mindy very rarely went to a 10 conference. 11 COMMISSIONER MOSER: Huh? 12 MS. HARGIS: Mindy did not like to go to 13 conferences; she just didn't go. And we had a year there 14 where she was really gone; the deputy was in that position. 15 JUDGE POLLARD: She was sick, yeah. 16 MS. HARGIS: Well, no, she actually quit, and we 17 didn't have anybody in till after the election. So -- 18 JUDGE POLLARD: Yeah. You got any -- 19 COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No, sir. 20 JUDGE POLLARD: Do you have any issues? 21 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Are you anticipating a little 22 more part-time salary this year? 23 MS. SOLDAN: Well, I had requested it last year, 24 and didn't realize that it had been cut from the budget, so 25 I'm requesting it to be back in there again. 5-27-14 bwk 128 1 COMMISSIONER REEVES: How much have you -- it shows 2 you had a budget of 236, and projected 405. 3 MS. SOLDAN: Well, I didn't have a budget at all. 4 I didn't realize it, so I brought a part-time person in, and 5 then realized I didn't have the money, so we had to do a 6 budget amendment to pay for that. So, I'm not bringing 7 anybody else in for the rest of the year. 8 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Okay. That's all I have, 9 Judge. 10 JUDGE POLLARD: All right. What's next? 11 MS. HARGIS: That's it. 12 COMMISSIONER MOSER: That's it. 13 JUDGE POLLARD: Hallelujah. 14 MS. HARGIS: We did it. 15 COMMISSIONER MOSER: For now. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Can I ask the Auditor just a 17 quick question? 18 MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir. 19 COMMISSIONER REEVES: What's our anticipated 20 deficit, from what you have? 21 MS. HARGIS: I believe it's a million and 22 something. I didn't look at it before I came over, but 23 it's -- and that's with putting the preliminary tax roll in 24 there at 100 percent. So, if we lose about 250,000 on the 25 preliminary tax roll, that means we're about a million, two. 5-27-14 bwk 129 1 A million, 295, actually. A million, 295. So, if we add 2 another 250 to that, it'll be a million -- be a million, six 3 in the hole. 4 COMMISSIONER REEVES: A million, six? 5 JUDGE POLLARD: A million, six shortfall? 6 MS. HARGIS: And the revenue in there is about as 7 tight as I can get it, and I'm really not comfortable going 8 up. 9 JUDGE POLLARD: And I've asked her to go through 10 and prepare a list of where she thinks we can cut, too. 11 COMMISSIONER REEVES: The revenue -- 12 JUDGE POLLARD: Go over this list. 13 COMMISSIONER REEVES: The revenue is at 100 percent 14 of the preliminary value from KCAD? 15 MS. HARGIS: The -- yes, it is. 16 COMMISSIONER REEVES: 100 percent? 17 MS. HARGIS: 100 percent. 18 COMMISSIONER REEVES: What have we experienced 19 normally, county-wide, reduction from A.R.B. hearings? 20 MS. HARGIS: Last year we lost 250,000. The year 21 before that we lost about 175,000 from the preliminary roll. 22 And based on, you know, last year, it's going to be at least 23 200, I'm assuming. 24 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I'd be very concerned using 25 100 percent of the preliminary appraised value. A good 5-27-14 bwk 130 1 property tax consultant can get quite a bit of that down. I 2 speak from experience. 3 MS. HARGIS: So, what I would like to do, then, is 4 -- and with your permission, is go ahead and reduce that 5 revenue down to what I -- you know, what we think we might 6 lose. And we could lose more. I mean, I don't have a 7 crystal ball. 8 JUDGE POLLARD: Well, it's guesswork anywhere on 9 revenue. 10 MS. HARGIS: So I'm going to reduce that, so 11 we're -- we are a million, six in the hole. 12 JUDGE POLLARD: So we got to look at your cut list 13 next. 14 MS. HARGIS: Look at the cut list. We're going to 15 hand it out to y'all, and we will refer to the line items. 16 And there may be some others that we've done today, but we've 17 done minimal. Some of them we may already have on the list. 18 But if you'll -- James, do you want to pass those out? 19 MR. ROBLES: I have one for the Judge. I can make 20 copies for everybody. 21 COMMISSIONER MOSER: What's that? 22 MS. HARGIS: What we've done is put the departments 23 behind there so that you can easily look at the list, then 24 look at the department. 25 COMMISSIONER REEVES: Looks like we've cut about 5-27-14 bwk 131 1 100,000 so far. 2 MS. HARGIS: Well, we put some back in, too. 3 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I think it's 100. 4 MS. HARGIS: Oh, did you look at it? 5 COMMISSIONER REEVES: I've been keeping up with it. 6 JUDGE POLLARD: We are adjourned. Thank you very 7 much. 8 (Budget workshop adjourned at 5:05 p.m.) 9 - - - - - - - - - - 10 11 12 STATE OF TEXAS | 13 COUNTY OF KERR | 14 The above and foregoing is a true and complete 15 transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as 16 official reporter for the Commissioners Court of Kerr County, 17 Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth. 18 DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 6th day of June, 2014. 19 20 JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk 21 BY: _________________________________ Kathy Banik, Deputy County Clerk 22 Certified Shorthand Reporter 23 24 25 5-27-14 bwk