Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Finance Committee
May 31, 2000
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the 31st
8 day of May 2000, there came on to be heard
9 matters under the regulatory authority of the
10 Parks and Wildlife Commission of Texas, in the
11 commission hearing room of the Texas Parks and
12 Wildlife Headquarters complex, Austin, Travis
13 County, Texas, beginning at 3:10 p.m., to wit:
14
15
APPEARANCES:
16 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
FINANCE COMMITTEE:
17 Chair: Ernest Angelo, Jr.
Lee M. Bass
18 Carol E. Dinkins
Dick W. Heath (Absent)
19 Nolan Ryan
Alvin L. Henry
20 John Avila, Jr.
Katharine Armstrong Idsal
21 Mark E. Watson, Jr.
22
23 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
24 Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other
25 personnel of the Parks and Wildlife Department.
.0002
1 MAY 31, 2000
2 *-*-*-*-*
3 FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING
4 *-*-*-*-*
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. We'll
6 call to order the meeting of the Finance
7 Committee. And the first item is to approve the
8 minutes from the previous meeting. Could we have
9 a motion to that effect?
10 COMMISSIONER AVILA: So moved.
11 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Do we have a
12 second?
13 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Second.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: All in favor
15 say aye. So moved.
16 (Motion passed unanimously.)
17 ITEM 1 - BRIEFING - CHAIRMAN'S CHARGES.
18 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The next item
19 is a chairman's charge which will be reviewed by
20 Andy.
21 MR. SANSOM: Members, the Finance
22 Committee also has a fairly extensive list of
23 charges. The first was to make sure that we
24 satisfied our customers by ensuring an
25 uninterrupted Texas Outdoor Connection automated
.0003
1 licensing system. Today you'll get a briefing
2 item which will give you the status of the new
3 efforts to acquire a new contractor for the
4 outdoor connection.
5 Charge Number 4 was to work with the
6 conservation committee to monitor and track
7 current initiatives to support enhanced funding
8 of land and water conservation, wildlife
9 diversity initiatives and coastal restoration
10 projects through OCS revenues.
11 Carol Dinkins and I spent a couple
12 of days along with Walt Dabney and Gary Graham
13 and others up in Washington working on the
14 Conservation and Reinvestment Act and it did pass
15 the House and is now headed for a hearing markup
16 in the Senate on June the 14th.
17 You charged us to enhance our
18 marketing and promotional opportunities in order
19 to increase revenue, and today you're also going
20 to see a presentation on the new Senior Combo and
21 Super Combo license proposals.
22 Our Big Time Texas Hunts has been a
23 great success. We've almost doubled the average
24 number of entries. And the Whitetail Bonanza
25 accounts for 28 percent now of all sales. We're
.0004
1 about to do a mailing to 320,000 customers to
2 promote the program for next year, and we
3 anticipate its growth to be as much as 20
4 percent, for a total of about 86,000 customers.
5 Our license plate is doing well. We
6 sold 5,000 and expect to reach total sales of
7 about 6,500 plates by year-end. We're beginning
8 to look at the introduction of a second plate in
9 the late fall of the year 2000 and will develop a
10 series of designs for product testing at Expo.
11 We project to generate about $278,000 in license
12 plate sales, and a net of $146,000 will go
13 directly back into our conservation programs.
14 Bob Cook and his team have met with
15 the Presidian Corporation on a series of
16 proposals that they have submitted to us for
17 nature lodges in several of our locations. I
18 believe that the projects currently under
19 discussion are at Palo Duro Canyon, Guadalupe
20 River State Park, Mustang Island, and Indian
21 Lodge. We'll report to you as that proceeds.
22 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: That concludes
23 your --
24 MR. SANSOM: Yes, sir.
25 COMMISSIONER BASS: Andy, pardon me,
.0005
1 if I may. The monies from the license plate are
2 going to what use? I know they're going to
3 conservation programs. But is that -- has that
4 been budgeted or marketed for --
5 MR. SANSOM: It has not been
6 budgeted yet. It will be a part of the operating
7 budget process that we will bring to you.
8 COMMISSIONER BASS: I would be
9 interested in some feedback from staff, maybe at
10 our August meeting or something, about what
11 the -- how they might assess it this time, given
12 the success of the horny toad license plate. I'm
13 sure Fort Worth is probably --
14 COMMISSIONER AVILA: I was going to
15 ask, have those sales been in Fort Worth?
16 COMMISSIONER BASS: TCU-1, TCU-2,
17 TCU -- but John's idea of using the bluebonnet in
18 relation to state parks for a license specialty
19 plate, you know, whether people care about parks
20 or not, I think there will be a lot of people who
21 like the bluebonnet that will create a market for
22 it. Just like the horny toad sold at TCU, the
23 bluebonnet is going to sell to a lot of people, I
24 think. And I'd hate for somebody else to pick
25 that icon up, since the legislation is such that
.0006
1 that could happen.
2 So I'd be interested in maybe in our
3 August meeting for the staff to give us some
4 assessment of how they might view the feasibility
5 of adding a second icon and a second plate.
6 MR. SANSOM: We could do that.
7 COMMISSIONER BASS: Okay.
8 MR. SANSOM: Thank you.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
10 questions or comments?
11 If not, we'll go to Item Number 2 on
12 the agenda, which is a current financial review
13 and a budget preview for fiscal year 2001. And
14 Suzy Whittenton will give us that.
15 ITEM 2 - BRIEFING - FINANCIAL REVIEW AND
16 FYO1 BUDGET PREVIEW.
17 MS. WHITTENTON: Thank you. I'll be
18 very brief, per Chairman Bass's request. We'll
19 do real quickly a brief update of the financial
20 information for our major accounts for the
21 current fiscal year, and then talk a little bit
22 about what we've done on the fiscal year '01
23 budget at this point, and then just some final
24 reminders about the appropriations request that's
25 due on the fiscal year 2002-2003 budget.
.0007
1 A look first at account 9, where we
2 keep our -- where we deposit our boat fees and
3 our license fees. As of -- I believe this is as
4 of the end of April, boat fees were down slightly
5 from what we had originally anticipated.
6 However, it's still early in the year for boat
7 fees. So far we've collected 47 percent. And
8 the projected amount is close to what we
9 originally estimated. So we're not going to
10 recommend any kind of adjustment on boat fees.
11 We take a look at license sales. We
12 have information now through May the 17th. Super
13 Combo sales are up, as we expected, and Combo
14 Sales are down, with overall combination license
15 sales up just a little bit, 1.1 percent.
16 Resident hunting sales are down
17 three percent. Nonresident sales are up 11
18 percent. If you look at total hunting sales,
19 which includes combo sales, they're up a half a
20 percent, or close to a million licenses. This is
21 very similar to the information we saw at the
22 last meeting. So there's not much change there.
23 On the fishing licenses, these are
24 very similar to last year's sales figures, with a
25 half percent variance on total fishing sales.
.0008
1 That number also includes combo sales. Total
2 license sales are up $1.8 million, or about three
3 percent over last year.
4 Based on the sales report from the
5 Texas Outdoor Connection, our point-of-sale
6 system, revenue is up about $1.4 million over the
7 budgeted amount, budgeted estimate. We've
8 already made a previous adjustment to our
9 estimate, so we're not going to ask for another
10 adjustment at this time. Of course, we'll have
11 better information at the next meeting.
12 This slide shows projected ending
13 balance in Account 9, where we have our licenses
14 and boat fees. It starts with the beginning
15 balance that we had at the beginning of the
16 fiscal year of $32 million, adds in our estimated
17 annual revenue of $128 million and subtracts out
18 our estimated annual expenditures of
19 $158 million. And we expect to have an estimated
20 ending balance of about $2 million August 31st.
21 We'll look at State Park fees. The
22 revenue is up almost 16 percent as of the end of
23 April over last year's. This number, we think it
24 may be up partly because of the warm winter we
25 had. The number that we had looked at at the
.0009
1 last meeting revenue was up 19 percent. So
2 it's -- the variance has dropped off some. So
3 we'll see what the summer hot weather and drought
4 does.
5 At this time, with 67 percent of
6 park fees collected, it looks like the park
7 revenue could be up $2 million over last year's
8 and almost $3 million over what we originally
9 estimated.
10 We're going to recommend a $1
11 million increase in our projection, in our
12 estimate, to be conservative in case we have
13 issues with the drought or the hot summer. We'll
14 just go ahead and bump up our estimate, our
15 revenue estimate to $23.3 million.
16 And then when you look at projected
17 ending balance for Account 64, and including the
18 revenue adjustment of the million dollars
19 additional revenue that we think we'll have,
20 we'll have an ending balance of about
21 $3 million.
22 That was a real quick update of the
23 current situation. And I'll give you a preview
24 of our fiscal year '01 budget status.
25 We started the budget process in
.0010
1 March and division -- each division submitted
2 their request for budgets in mid April. We start
3 by looking at how much we think we're going to
4 have available to spend. And early estimates
5 show that we'll have about $252 million to work
6 with. We're still working on refining that
7 number some.
8 What we did was, we did the 95
9 percent budgeting process again, which meant each
10 division was given 95 percent of their current
11 year budget, and then they were allowed to ask
12 for supplementals over and above that. And so
13 what we got in was $33 million in requested
14 supplementals. And then grants and capital
15 budgets are considered separately.
16 If you look at the $33 million in
17 supplemental requests, $17 million of that was
18 just for regular operating budget items,
19 reinstatements and fulfillment of unmet needs.
20 Then we had $2 million in dedicated fund requests
21 and then $14 million in revenue-generating items
22 and grant requests.
23 The grant budget -- the grant
24 requests were -- totaled $29 million and are
25 broken out as shown. Local park grants of
.0011
1 $20 million, community outdoor outreach grants of
2 $1.5 million. Three and a half million to the
3 Balcones Canyonland Preserve, which I think is a
4 federal pass-through, and then other grants of
5 $3.8.
6 Capital budget requests are focused
7 primarily on major and minor repairs. I've put a
8 note there that $19 million of that is bondable,
9 but we won't have $19 million of bond funds. So
10 that -- we'll have about $13 million of bond
11 funds available.
12 Here is the bottom line.
13 $262 million in requests, and estimated funds
14 available of $252 million (inaudible). So we'll
15 be trying to pair that down. There's about $10
16 million more requests than we have funds
17 available. And this number may change some as we
18 try to nail down that estimated funds available
19 number. We'll try to prioritize those requests.
20 Looking at the number of positions
21 that were requested, we -- as you know, we have a
22 legislative cap limit on number of employees we
23 can have at any one time in the agency. Our cap
24 is 2,954 employees. And when you look at the
25 base budget, it included 2,800. With the
.0012
1 additional supplementals and capital budget
2 employees, that brings us up to 3,100. So we
3 have more positions requested than we can have.
4 But we're also able to budget more than the
5 legislative cap, due to turnover. So this isn't
6 really -- isn't going to be a big issue, I don't
7 think, for us to deal with.
8 MR. SANSOM: I believe, Suzy,
9 there's something like 131 current vacancies.
10 MS. WHITTENTON: That's right.
11 MR. SANSOM: So that means that
12 difference there is much smaller than it appears
13 on this chart, potentially.
14 MS. WHITTENTON: I don't think that
15 we'll have too big an issue dealing with FTEs.
16 It will be more an issue dealing with funding,
17 how many of these requests we can fund dollarwise
18 rather than employees.
19 MR. SANSOM: All employees that are
20 not -- that are retained, whether they be summer
21 interns or seasonal employees, are counted into
22 that amount.
23 MS. WHITTENTON: Right.
24 MR. SANSOM: So a seasonal employee
25 would be -- say, a summer employee would be
.0013
1 one-fourth of an FTE.
2 MS. WHITTENTON: Right. Actually
3 you have to include some contractors as well, if
4 they work longer than six months for us, we have
5 to count them as employees. So there are a lot
6 of people.
7 But with the turnover, we have -- I
8 don't know what our turnover rate is, but it's --
9 most agencies have more than eight percent
10 turnover, so you get to build that into what you
11 can budget. So, as long as you don't average
12 more than 2,954 employees in any one quarter,
13 you're okay with the legislative cap.
14 COMMISSIONER RYAN: And that number
15 would be changed by the legislature?
16 MS. WHITTENTON: Yes. When they do
17 the appropriations bill. And we can request an
18 increase in our --
19 MR. SANSOM: We requested an
20 increase in FTEs here in the last legislative
21 session and it was denied, although our overall
22 funding was increased.
23 MS. WHITTENTON: Before final
24 decisions are made, these are some considerations
25 for us to --
.0014
1 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Vehicles.
2 MS. WHITTENTON: The first one I
3 list is salary issues. And what I mean by that
4 is career ladders, promotions, and merit
5 increases. We just need to budget for those,
6 decide what amount we need to budget for those.
7 MR. SANSOM: Members, you'll recall
8 that during the last legislative session, our law
9 enforcement officers received a fairly
10 substantial legislative pay increase. What we
11 have been attempting to do is to try to, as we
12 have done in the past, create a more equitable
13 internal balance of compensation. And that's a
14 pretty large number as we try to move the
15 biologists, the park rangers, and other employees
16 toward that same compensation level, that could
17 be -- that's the biggest number on the chart.
18 And it's one that we'll be wanting to seek your
19 counsel on as we go forward because compensation
20 is important to us.
21 MS. WHITTENTON: We also want to
22 consider legislative direction that was given to
23 the agency during the last appropriations
24 process.
25 MR. SANSOM: Excuse me, Suzy. Let
.0015
1 me just -- you and I can just kind of go back and
2 forth here. The issue there, members, is, the
3 appropriations direction which we received,
4 particularly as it relates to capital projects,
5 that there's some specific goals that we need to
6 make sure we meet. And so as we consider
7 allocating these funds, we've got to remember
8 that there are specific items in the
9 appropriations bill that the Legislature expects
10 us to complete.
11 MS. WHITTENTON: Right. I think
12 they said that if the money is available, we want
13 you to spend it on these projects. So we need to
14 consider those in making our budget decisions.
15 The vehicle issue --
16 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Major issue.
17 MS. WHITTENTON: Well, take into
18 account --
19 COMMISSIONER HENRY: (inaudible) the
20 secretary has seven cars --
21 MS. WHITTENTON: The mail room had
22 four.
23 They have a study going on right now
24 that -- the council on competitive government is
25 doing some recommendations which include at this
.0016
1 time that agencies would only be able to replace
2 vehicles. They wouldn't be able to add to their
3 fleet, except for law enforcement.
4 MR. SANSOM: It's very similar to
5 the FTE cap.
6 MS. WHITTENTON: We're going to have
7 a vehicle cap, probably. So we'll have to
8 consider what comes out of that. And we don't
9 want to have another Sunset hearing like the last
10 one, where they tell us how many vehicles we
11 have.
12 Also, we'll try to address any
13 Sunset issues that we can, with the legislative
14 authority that we have currently. And we'll try
15 to consider some of those and try to prioritize
16 things with Sunset's report in mind.
17 MR. SANSOM: As you all, those of
18 you who were at the Sunset hearings recall, we
19 pretty much made a commitment to implementing all
20 of the nonstatutory Sunset recommendations, and
21 some of those would involve additional
22 expenditures. And so we instructed the staff
23 that the implementation of Sunset recommendations
24 comes pretty close to the top of the list in
25 terms of requests for supplemental funding.
.0017
1 MS. WHITTENTON: Okay. What we need
2 to do next is try to pair down requests and nail
3 down the amount of funds we have to work with.
4 We're targeting an internal completion date of
5 around July 7th. That's so that we'll have
6 enough time to start working on the legislative
7 appropriations request, which this year is due
8 August 18th. That will be our request for funds
9 and for FTEs for the fiscal years 2002 and 2003.
10 So we have to have our '01 budget done first
11 before we get to make decisions about what we
12 want to request.
13 That request -- the instructions for
14 the appropriations request say that we are
15 limited to current level funding and anything
16 over and above that would go into an exceptional
17 item request. So we'll have to be thinking about
18 whether we want to ask for exceptional items and
19 how we want to structure those.
20 So by the next Commission meeting in
21 August, end of August, we'll have a final fiscal
22 year '01 budget, as well as we will have turned
23 in our appropriation requests for fiscal years
24 '02 and '03. And that concludes my --
25 MR. SANSOM: Any questions or
.0018
1 comments?
2 COMMISSIONER RYAN: Yeah. I'd like
3 to ask Suzy, on that $10 million difference that
4 you have, and you said that your estimated
5 revenue could vary, do you expect that to vary up
6 before the deadline? And I assume the deadline,
7 would it be the 18th or July the 7th?
8 MS. WHITTENTON: July the 7th. Yes,
9 I -- we've been trying to get a little closer on
10 that. It does look like there may be a little
11 bit more available than we originally thought.
12 So I think the number may go up a couple
13 million.
14 COMMISSIONER RYAN: So do you expect
15 to adjust that?
16 MS. WHITTENTON: Yes. But it will
17 go in the right direction, so -- we started out
18 ultra conservative.
19 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
20 questions, comments? Thank you, Suzy.
21 MR. SANSOM: We would like to --
22 I've asked Michelle to begin working on all of
23 our calendars to see whether or not we could find
24 a date to have a brief budget meeting during the
25 summer, you know, coincident with this process
.0019
1 ITEM 3 - ACTION - REINSTATEMENT OF RECIPROCAL
2 LICENSE AGREEMENT WITH LOUISIANA AND OKLAHOMA.
3 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. We'll
4 move to Item Number 3, which is the reinstatement
5 of the reciprocal license agreement with
6 Louisiana and Oklahoma, to be presented by Ken
7 Kurzawski.
8 MR. KURZAWSKI: Good afternoon,
9 Commissioners. The purpose of my presentation
10 today would be to ask for the Commission's
11 approval of some of the changes that were
12 discussed at our April meeting to our reciprocal
13 license agreements for seniors.
14 If I could quickly take you through
15 the history and the status of these agreements,
16 you recall we eliminated these agreements with
17 Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Kansas in August of
18 '99. Now residents from these states need
19 nonresident licenses when they come fish in
20 Texas. Conversely, Texas seniors also need those
21 nonresident licenses when they go fishing in
22 those states.
23 These exemptions were eliminated in
24 response to complaints from Texas anglers that
25 were based on the special resident license that
.0020
1 they had to purchase after 199 -- 1995. That was
2 a $6 license. They felt it was an equity issue,
3 that people were able to come from out of state
4 and fish for free and they had to pay $6.
5 Of course, another part of that
6 equation is, when they went to those states, they
7 got a free license, so that was the reciprocal
8 portion.
9 But since the change in last year,
10 we received numerous complaints from our anglers,
11 the seniors having to go over and fish in these
12 other states, and now having to pay the full
13 nonresident license fees, which can range from,
14 for an annual license 30 or 40 dollars or more.
15 After discussing these changes with
16 anglers, legislators, and staff from the other
17 states, we decided that reinstatement of those
18 agreements was our best option. Unfortunately,
19 here I have an error on the slide. We were
20 proposing that the -- excuse me -- two states did
21 propose that they would respond in kind. But
22 this morning about 10:30 we received a fax from
23 Louisiana saying that they were not going to go
24 through with the reciprocal portion of their
25 agreement with us. They cited some problems they
.0021
1 were having in getting a license fee through -- a
2 general license fee through in their legislature
3 and they're putting it on hold. So what that
4 means is, we can go ahead and pass this as we are
5 proposing, but it wouldn't go into effect until
6 Louisiana takes some sort of action to ratify
7 it.
8 Oklahoma, as soon as we pass it,
9 they have a similar-type process, that if we have
10 one in place, it automatically comes into effect
11 for them. So unfortunately, that's something
12 that just came up. And we did have a lot of
13 interest down in the southeast corner of the
14 state for that to happen. It looks like that
15 might not happen as quickly as we had hoped.
16 So as it stands now with these
17 changes, Oklahoma and Texas will have an
18 agreement but Louisiana and Texas won't. We are
19 not including Kansas, as I mentioned before.
20 We're just kind of sticking with the border
21 states.
22 These changes were published in the
23 Texas Register for public comment. And we
24 haven't received any particular comments on that
25 since that publication.
.0022
1 So we would -- staff would recommend
2 that the Finance Committee recommend to the full
3 commission that we adopt those changes as were
4 published in the Texas Register. And this item
5 would be available for the consent agenda.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The original
7 objections have kind of gone away. Is that
8 right?
9 MR. KURZAWSKI: For the --
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: For the
11 seniors. We felt like it was unfair that they
12 had to pay a Texas fee?
13 MR. KURZAWSKI: I think a lot of
14 that stems -- they're probably basically unhappy
15 about having to pay the $6. It wasn't
16 necessarily that others were getting it for
17 free. But I guess in face of the $6 versus the
18 $30, this is a little higher priority for them
19 now.
20 COMMISSIONER HENRY: How much money
21 are we talking about?
22 MR. KURZAWSKI: We really don't
23 know. This just came into effect in September 1
24 and it's really been in just seven, eight
25 months. We really can't measure that. And I'd
.0023
1 be surprised if -- I'm sure Louisiana can't,
2 either, to their -- their looking for extra
3 funds. But to get some of the input we had from
4 the seniors down in the Beaumont area, they might
5 not be going over there fishing at all and paying
6 that fee. So I don't know if it's much of an
7 impact financially or not. Probably preventing
8 more people from fishing one way or the other
9 than it's worth the extra license fees that come
10 in.
11 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
12 questions or comments? Do we have a motion? It
13 could be on the consent agenda?
14 COMMISSIONER RYAN: I make a motion
15 that we put it on the consent agenda.
16 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Second?
17 COMMISSIONER IDSAL: Second.
18 COMMISSIONER RYAN: And also what
19 staff recommends.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: It's been
21 moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All
22 in favor say aye? All opposed? Thank you, Ken.
23 (Motion passed unanimously.)
24 ITEM 4 - BRIEFING - TEXAS OUTDOOR CONNECTION
25 LICENSE POINT OF SALE SYSTEM.
.0024
1 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Item Number 4
2 is the -- a briefing on the Texas Outdoor
3 Connection license point-of-sale system. Jayna
4 Burgdorf. Jayna?
5 MS. BURGDORF: I do have a very
6 brief briefing. We did receive legislative
7 budget board approval on our project to proceed
8 and go forward with that. We released our final
9 request for offers on April 10th. And we have
10 five bids from three different vendors. Here is
11 one of the reasons why it's going to be very
12 brief. I cannot discuss the proposal's contents
13 in a public meeting. So you have a handout, a
14 confidential handout that's being passed around
15 that has key points.
16 One thing that I can tell you is
17 that our request for offers included certain
18 requirements that we expect any legitimate bid to
19 address. And that was an online system,
20 30-second response time, graphic capability for
21 our printers so that we can print our license in
22 a more horizontal format, a display screen which
23 will be much more user friendly for retailers,
24 online connections to the Internet and telephone
25 sales, and a separate pricing structure.
.0025
1 I can also tell you this. We did
2 receive one bid from EDS. We received two bids
3 from kind of a group that works together, Central
4 Bank/ALS, which is also known as Automated
5 Licensing System, and two bids from MCI Worldcom.
6 And our next steps, next week, we
7 plan to proceed with best and final offers. And
8 then the rest of these are basically the same --
9 the same calendar that I've been showing you. We
10 plan to have our statewide rollout completed by
11 June.
12 And I'd be happy to answer any
13 questions that I'm allowed to.
14 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: How do you
15 feel about it at this point? What's your --
16 MS. BURGDORF: At this point, I feel
17 pretty good about it. I think we had a --
18 interesting reference calls. And I don't think
19 I'm going to get into trouble here. It's just,
20 we talked to some other states that worked with
21 all sorts of different vendors and there just
22 isn't a system implementation that goes
23 incredibly smoothly or not one out there that we
24 know of. And so just trying to determine how are
25 we going to get this project off the ground in
.0026
1 the time frame that we've got, which isn't an
2 unaggressive time frame. I mean, it's aggressive
3 but it's not unrealistic. But we just want to do
4 it with uninterrupted service to our customers.
5 And I do think it's good that we have a
6 transition at this point. We've been through
7 this. Most of -- there really isn't another
8 state that's going back out for bid, other than
9 Missouri, that has a state requirement, and
10 they're pretty much looking at the same system.
11 So we will have the benefit this time of having
12 gone through it once and knowing what we're
13 looking for.
14 And we've already -- John Wilson who
15 is my co-project manager, has already started
16 working on the system design. So basically when
17 we contract with someone, we're going to be
18 giving them a lot of work that most states
19 wouldn't even know where to start with.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
21 questions or comments?
22 Thank you, Jayna, I guess.
23 COMMISSIONER BASS: I have one
24 question. The bid packages, as they came back,
25 what significant differences in what the customer
.0027
1 will perceive is it from the current system?
2 MS. BURGDORF: The most significant
3 differences are the ones probably that we had up
4 there. The license will look different to the
5 customer. And I passed out a mock-up at our last
6 meeting. It will be much more like the license
7 before we went to the automated system. And so
8 that will be the biggest difference, I think, for
9 our own customers.
10 For our other customers, our
11 retailers, our vendors, I think we're going for
12 see improved accuracy, just in -- the technology
13 has improved in the past five years. And so
14 we're looking at these little machines that have
15 much more functionality and it's very clear, just
16 like an ATM, which key you're supposed to press.
17 It's much more question driven as opposed to them
18 having to memorize license numbers, like, oh,
19 yeah, this license is the 102 and I need to punch
20 that in. And so I think we'll see improved
21 accuracy and reduced voids from our retailers,
22 and I think they'll appreciate that.
23 COMMISSIONER BASS: Just a little
24 more user friendly. Smaller counter space?
25 MS. BURGDORF: Probably about the
.0028
1 same. Because instead of having one printer now,
2 we're going to have another printer.
3 COMMISSIONER BASS: And time
4 required to service each customer, will that
5 be --
6 MS. BURGDORF: It will probably be
7 about the same, maybe a little less.
8 COMMISSIONER BASS: At some point, I
9 would like to see the mock-up of the license,
10 since I was not here.
11 MS. BURGDORF: Okay. Sure.
12 MR. SANSOM: It's not big enough to
13 wrap around your head.
14 MS. BURGDORF: It doesn't feel like
15 a phone book.
16 CHAIRMAN BASS: It's even smaller
17 than the Alvin phone book.
18 COMMISSIONER RYAN: No comment.
19 ITEM 5 - ACTION - SENIOR COMBINATION LICENSES.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Jayna, we'll
21 move to Item Number 5 and the senior combination
22 license.
23 MS. BURGDORF: Okay. Briefly review
24 three items. One is the senior fishing license
25 and how that was established, the public hearing
.0029
1 feedback that we've gotten on the two proposals
2 for our combination licenses, and then what the
3 actual proposal is on the table today.
4 The senior fishing license was
5 established by House Bill 1785 in the 74th
6 Legislative Session. We believe that
7 approximately five percent of the senior
8 population is anglers. It may even be as high as
9 seven percent. The resident seniors age 65,
10 after August 31, 1995, may purchase a discounted
11 fishing license for $6. In other words, the
12 legislation grandfathered those who were already
13 seniors at the time.
14 The bill was largely passed to
15 address our aging population. Equity with our
16 senior hunters who have paid $6 since 1985, a
17 revenue stream which in the future will become
18 considerable. And I have -- that's my next
19 slide.
20 What we wanted to do is establish a
21 discount for seniors, like other business and
22 government services. We do have a need for that
23 customer information for accurate surveys. And
24 the bottom line, to some extent, is that our
25 resource is still taken.
.0030
1 In fiscal '96 when we first sold
2 those licenses to the senior population, we sold
3 almost 14,000. Last year, we sold almost
4 40,000. And by 2020, we're expected to sell
5 almost 180,000, over a million dollars in
6 revenue. And so that's the point about at some
7 point, it does become a significant revenue
8 stream.
9 We asked at the public hearing --
10 public hearings this spring, what individuals
11 thought of a Senior Combo and a Senior Super
12 Combo. We had 69 total responses. Thirty-six
13 thought it was a good idea, ten generally made
14 comments along the lines -- and I think these
15 were mostly the e-mail ones -- that seniors
16 should pay the same as we pay. And then 23 felt
17 like they should not have a fee at all.
18 COMMISSIONER BASS: Not a lot of
19 seniors doing the e-mail.
20 MS. BURGDORF: And then the proposal
21 on the Senior Combo was -- we posted it at a
22 range at the last meeting, $9 to $11; and on the
23 Super Combo, $19 to $25. We haven't received any
24 additional public feedback since then and we did
25 present this to the House Recreational Resources
.0031
1 Committee and they were generally very
2 favorable.
3 So our recommendation today for
4 approval and consideration tomorrow is, the
5 Senior Combination at $10, the Senior Super
6 Combination at $25.
7 We do expect a revenue impact but I
8 want to emphasize that it's only -- the only
9 reason that it's a positive fiscal note is
10 because that represents the option of individuals
11 choosing to purchase what they consider to be an
12 added value license. If they already buy a
13 hunting and fishing license, they will get a
14 discount. If that's what they want is the $2
15 discount, they will get a $2 discount.
16 So it's a revenue increase, not
17 because we're raising fees for anyone, but we're
18 offering something that they haven't had before.
19 And we actually, based on our regular Super Combo
20 experience, we think people will take advantage
21 of that.
22 Chairman Ellis of the subcommittee
23 did ask us to consider establishing a Senior
24 Texan, which would basically include the
25 privileges of the Texas Conservation Passport as
.0032
1 well as the Senior Super Combo. And it's -- we
2 can't do that at this point in time because of
3 the way the register works. And you have to --
4 you can't make substantive changes at this
5 point. But we could consider that for the
6 future.
7 And I'd be happy to answer any
8 questions.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: There being
10 none, do we have a motion?
11 COMMISSIONER AVILA: So moved.
12 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Second.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any further
14 discussion? All in favor say aye. Opposed?
15 Motion passes.
16 (Motion passed unanimously.)
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Jayna, thank
18 you.
19 MS. BURGDORF: Thanks. ITEM 6 -
20 ACTION - SALTWATER SPORTFISHING STAMP
21 SURCHARGE (HEARD IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE
22 REGULATIONS COMMITTEE).
23 ITEM 7 - ACTION - PROPOSAL FOR CONTRACT
24 DISPUTE.
25 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: We've already
.0033
1 taken care of Item Number 6 this morning, so
2 we'll move to Item Number 7, which is the
3 proposal for contract dispute resolution. And
4 Judi Doran will present that.
5 MS. DORAN: Good afternoon. This is
6 a proposal for, as you said, contract dispute
7 resolution. A new law last session under the
8 Government Code Chapter 2260, requires each State
9 agency to adopt rules to implement procedures for
10 contract claims against the State.
11 Staff participated in an interagency
12 task force that developed a lot of rules and then
13 staff adapted those rules for TPW. The rules
14 contained key definitions, procedures for
15 negotiation, and for department counterclaims,
16 and for mediation. It also has procedures for
17 appeals to the State Office of Administrative
18 Hearings and for settlement agreement. It also
19 contains the timetable that TPWD and the
20 contractors must follow in order to assert their
21 contract claims.
22 Therefore, staff recommends that
23 this committee authorize it to publish the rules
24 as you have them in your material in the Texas
25 Register.
.0034
1 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Questions,
2 comments, motions?
3 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I'll move.
4 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: Second.
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any further
6 discussion? All in favor say aye? The motion is
7 adopted.
8 (Motion passed unanimously.)
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Thank you. On
10 the action on item -- Item Number 5, we could
11 have put that on the consent agenda if there's
12 any desire to do so, if we want to amend that
13 motion and do that. Or what's the preference?
14 Will there be any objection to putting it on the
15 consent agenda?
16 VICE-CHAIR DINKINS: You mean
17 motion?
18 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Without
19 objection, we would like to put Item Number 5 on
20 the consent agenda.
21 And I believe if there's no other
22 business, that concludes the Finance Committee.
23 *-*-*-*-*
24 (HEARING ADJOURNED.)
25 *-*-*-*-*
.0035
1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF TEXAS )
COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
3
4 I, MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, a Certified Court
5 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do hereby
6 certify that the above and foregoing 33 pages
7 constitute a full, true and correct transcript of
8 the minutes of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
9 Commission on MAY 31, 2000, in the commission
10 hearing room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
11 Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis County,
12 Texas.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic record
14 was made by me a the time of the public meeting
15 and said stenographic notes were thereafter
16 reduced to computerized transcription under my
17 supervision and control.
18 WITNESS MY HAND this the 28TH day of JULY,
19 2000.
20
21
MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, RPR, CSR NO. 3226
22 Expiration Date: 12-31-00
3101 Bee Caves Road
23 Centre II, Suite 220
Austin, Texas 78746
24 (512) 328-5557
25 EBS NO. 40483
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