Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Finance Committee
Aug. 29, 2001
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1
5 BE IT REMEMBERED, that heretofore on the 29th day
6 of August, 2001, there came to be heard matters under the
7 regulatory authority of the Parks and Wildlife Commission of
8 Texas, in the Commission Hearing Room of the Texas Parks and
9 Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Texas, beginning at
10 9:00 a.m., to wit:
11
12 APPEARANCES:
THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
13
FINANCE COMMITTEE:
14 CHAIR: Ernest Angelo, Jr., Midland, Texas
Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas
15 Carol E. Dinkins, Houston, Texas
Philip Montgomery, Dallas, Texas
16 John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas, Absent
Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas
17 Katharine Armstrong Idsal, San Antonio, Texas
Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
18 Joseph Fitzsimons, San Antonio, Texas
19
20 THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Andrew H. Sansom, Executive Director, and other personnel of
21 the Parks and Wildlife Department
22
23
24
25
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1 CHAIR IDSAL: Our next meeting will be the
2 Finance Committee and I think I had made this announcement
3 during the budget workshop, but Ernie Angelo is the new
4 chairman of the Finance Committee and Phil Montgomery is vice
5 chairman of the Finance Committee.
6 Ernie.
7 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Thank you, Madame Chairman.
8 First we have the minutes of the previous meeting. Do we have
9 a motion that they be approved or are there any corrections?
10 COMIMSSIONER WATSON: So moved.
11 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Second.
12 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: All in favor say aye.
13 ("Aye").
14 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: All opposed? The minutes are
15 approved. Mr. Sansom, would you go over the Chairman's Charge
16 with us, please.
17 Item 1: Chairman's Charges
18 MR. SANSOM: Yes, sir. The mission of this
19 committee is to assure the financial stability of the
20 department and seek self-sufficiency by maximizing revenues,
21 promoting entrepreneurial behavior, optimizing operational
22 efficiency, and complying with the Appropriations Act.
23 The Sunset Bill did have several specifics
24 provisions which will be overseen by this committee. First to
25 limit contracts for publication and then of specific note
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1 there we will need to terminate any contracts the department
2 has for the advertisement of tobacco. We'll need to develop
3 guidelines for employee fundraising above $500, create a
4 business plan for statewide commercial projects, update
5 department policy and analysis to reflect current State and
6 Federal economic opportunity laws, equal opportunity laws.
7 Identify and assist nonprofit organizations that partner with
8 the department, and of specific interest there we will need to
9 establish an official nonprofit partner. Participate, as
10 appropriate, in the effort to obtain voter approval for a bond
11 issue in the November election. That bond issue is
12 Proposition 8 and -- on the ballot, and it would provide the
13 department with some $103 million for deferred maintenance,
14 for annual maintenance over the next several years, and for a
15 number of specific projects. We will develop a program to
16 identify and classify participants in the vessel and outboard
17 motor industries in the State.
18 In addition, the 77th Legislature will require
19 us to evaluate the potential for issuance a revenue bond for
20 the Admiral Nimitz Museum and to adjust rates for licenses in
21 each the commercial fishery programs.
22 In addition we will review and implement the
23 State Auditor recommendations and review all fees to increase
24 revenue and ensure a fair fee structure for our customers.
25 Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Are there any questions or
2 suggestions about the Chairman's Charges? If not, we'll
3 proceed to the other items on the agenda.
4 Item 2: FY02 Operating and Capital Budget and Texas Parks
5 and Wildlife Investment Policy
6 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Our second item is the review
7 of the Fiscal '02 operating and capital budget and our
8 investment policy. And these will be briefed by Suzy
9 Whittenton. Suzy.
10 MS. WHITTENTON: Good morning. Thanks. We're
11 having some technical difficulties. I'm going to start today
12 with a brief year-end revenue update on our three major
13 revenue sources and then look at the funds available for the
14 coming fiscal year including revenue estimates for those major
15 funds, and then I'll lay out a recommended budget with
16 information on -- that will include full-time equivalents,
17 allocation of supercombo revenues to stamp funds, and then
18 give you some information on the budget and investment
19 policies.
20 In license sales for the year ending this
21 August we sold about $3.2 million of licenses, permits, and
22 stamps which was about 2 percent less than we had sold in the
23 previous year, but it resulted in the $2.9 million in
24 additional revenue. The increase in revenue was due primarily
25 to the continued shift from -- from regular licenses into the
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1 supercombo and also to the increase to the saltwater stamp
2 fee.
3 Hunting sales were up 3.5 percent in total
4 sales. If you look, that includes combinations but all
5 hunting-type licenses were up and revenue was up 6.6 percent
6 there. Fishing revenue was also up 3.7 percent. And in the
7 current year, the year that started -- the new license year
8 which begins selling licenses on August 15 and for that year,
9 for the FY02 license year revenue is already up a half million
10 dollars over '01 which is about 12 percent. And I think
11 that's due primarily or partly at least to the promotion that
12 we did where we gave away the couple of shotguns and a rod and
13 reel, so.
14 In boat fees, boat fees are up about $385,000
15 over last year and -- but they're also at about the level
16 where we estimated them for our original revenue estimate
17 which was $13.5 million is what we estimated and we're going
18 to come in, we think, at about 13.6 million as of -- by the
19 end of August.
20 In -- in park fees we started the year being
21 significantly down as you'll probably remember from the
22 previous year due to the weather that we had in the fall and
23 the winter months. But as of the end of July revenue was down
24 just 4 percent. And at the May meeting I reported that
25 revenue was down 10 1/2 percent, so we've made up quite a bit
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1 of difference there. And we project that total park revenue
2 will be about $23.8 million at the end of the year, at the end
3 of August, at the end of our fiscal year. Our original
4 estimate was for $23 million, so we still exceeded our
5 original estimate by a little bit even with the poor start
6 that we got.
7 Expected ending cash balances at 8/31 are as
8 follows: In the State Parks Account we'll have about
9 $1.87 million left over. In the Account 9, about
10 $3.8 million. And then in the Local Parks Account
11 approximately $8 million. These funds can be used toward the
12 FY02 budget. I thought I would show you what the revenue
13 estimates are made up of in the three primary funds, general
14 revenue, Fund 9 and Fund 64.
15 In general revenue we'll get approximately
16 $37.7 million. This comes from the unclaimed refunds of motor
17 boat fuels tax. Boat and motor boat sales and use tax. And
18 then you'll remember we got additional money from the
19 Legislature the last session of $4.2 million for specific
20 State parks for the World Birding Center. We've got various
21 other general revenue that we could use. We can use general
22 revenue for any -- any use pretty much. It can be used for
23 parks or any of the Fund 9-type activities which would be, you
24 know, wildlife and fisheries and law enforcement.
25 In the State Parks Account we're expecting
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1 about $52 million. The Park Revenue Account includes entrance
2 fees, concessions, Texas conservation passport, and some
3 public hunt money. They also get federal funds that go into
4 the State Park Account for the National Recreational Trails
5 and we get some land and water money that goes in there. We
6 also get $15.5 million of sporting good sales tax.
7 In Fund 9 we're estimating license revenue at
8 $61.6 million. Boat fees at $13.5. We have federal funds
9 from various sources at $47.6 million. We're also
10 anticipating that the commercial shrimp fee increase that just
11 went into effect will bring in about $600,000 the saltwater
12 stamp increase will bring in an additional $1.4 million.
13 The other categories includes public hunt,
14 fines, the boat tax, some interest in the revenue generating
15 thing kinds of activities for a total of $140 million.
16 And when you roll it all together from all
17 sources we've got about $263 million to work with. However,
18 some of these funds are set aside for specific uses. They
19 can't be used for just anything, but the total pot is about
20 $263 million.
21 Just as a reminder the Legislature passed some
22 much needed employee benefit increases and pay raises that
23 impacted our funds. They also approved House Bill 2071 which
24 requires that State agencies pay reimbursement for statewide
25 services through a cost allocation plan. And the estimate
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1 during the Legislative session that it would cost Fund 9 about
2 $600,000. So these were all kind of unexpected increases that
3 we'll have to pay out of our current funds. Other impacts
4 just to kind of general operating expense impacts that we've
5 been experiencing for a year or so now is the increases in
6 electric costs and natural gas costs and then gasoline. And
7 the Legislature also increased the travel rates reimbursement
8 rates for employees when they stay overnight, and so we'll be
9 absorbing all of these costs as well in our base budget.
10 The meeting last month at the budget meeting
11 workshop we looked at the gap between the requested needs and
12 the funds available. That gap is about $12 million, however,
13 most of our funds can only be used for specific activities.
14 So when you look at it by fund you can see that between Funds
15 9 and 64 we've got a difference of about $19 million of
16 unfunded needs. So in order to make all these numbers work
17 we're recommending a budget that starts at 97 percent of the
18 FY01 base budget and includes some provisions for each
19 division to give up an additional 2 percent in salary lapse,
20 that's salary savings that will be achieved through delayed
21 hiring tactics and leaving some positions vacant.
22 We are recommending that $3 million be set
23 aside for small maintenance and repairs. And there are no
24 major capital projects included in this recommendation and
25 there are no new bond funds available. You remember we drew
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1 down our last installment on our revenue bonds last February
2 and those funds are still -- they were all allocated to
3 projects. Some of that money will be spent during the year,
4 but it's not going to be budgeted. It's already budgeted in
5 previous years. And then we've got, of course, Proposition 8
6 on the ballot for November but even if that proposition
7 passes, we won't have the authority to spend any of that money
8 until fiscal year '03. So there are no bond funds in this
9 proposal. The recommended total operating budget is
10 $197.8 million. And it includes some supplemental funds, some
11 dedicated funding and some revenue generated projects. The
12 supplemental numbers include pay raises and the employee
13 benefit costs. That's why that may look a little high. Other
14 supplementals that are included in this budget which take the
15 place of other base items are increased cost to the hardware
16 and software maintenance. These are costs that we have to pay
17 no matter what of a little under $200,000.
18 Parks and Wildlife magazine has experienced
19 costs in postage and paper that's pretty significant and they
20 need an additional $150,000.
21 The game wardens had as one of their priorities
22 wanted to get computer equipment to some of their field game
23 wardens and they've managed to set aside $300,000 to get some
24 computers out there. They're going to have to stagger this
25 across several years to be able to get them all out there.
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1 Then in the Sunset Bill we're required to do an
2 inventory of State lands so we've set aside some money to
3 outsource that activity.
4 In order to make the cuts needed we're doing a
5 lot of delayed hiring, some delayed vehicle and boating
6 equipment purchases, we've cut some of the unfilled positions
7 and we're delaying expansion of our Wide Area Network. We've
8 cut some general costs such as travel and supplies and those
9 sorts of things from the operating budget and most
10 significantly we've delayed some capital projects.
11 You see in the capital budget we had requests
12 of $19 million come in from all the divisions and we're only
13 able to recommend $5.2 million. Most of the that is in small
14 maintenance and repairs. We've got some acquisition money set
15 aside, $1.6 million that's land and water money that wouldn't
16 be able to be used really for anything else, also includes
17 funds for the Bastrop Hinckley purchase. And then the major
18 repair item there is for the railroad.
19 The recommended grant budget, these are
20 pass-through funds primarily -- is $41.8 million. This is
21 higher than we had last year, but these funds would not be
22 able to be used for other operating budget uses so we're going
23 to go ahead and recommend that that all be set aside for
24 grants. When you add up the three budget types it's a total
25 of $244.8 million. This number is not significantly lower
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1 than last year's in total, but the funds are being used
2 differently. There are more grant funds and less operating
3 and capital funds.
4 This slide compares available cash to
5 recommended budget by fund and that -- so that last column
6 shows amounts of cash left unbudgeted. Some of those funds
7 are dedicated funds. But you can see that the cash balances
8 that we once had are no longer really there. We don't have
9 significant cash balances available anymore.
10 As you know, our appropriations bill includes a
11 cap on the number of full-time equivalent employees that we
12 can have and we can't exceed those caps. In Fiscal Year 01
13 that cap was 2,954. We overbudget full-time equivalents
14 because of the lag in hiring and we overbudgeted in the
15 current year by about 2 percent and at the end of August we
16 expert our total FTEs to come in at under 2,900 so we'll be
17 significantly under the cap, the legislative cap. So we're
18 recommending for the Fiscal Year 02 that we again overbudget
19 FTEs and with delayed hiring and leaving positions vacant, I
20 don't feel like there any cause for concern that we could
21 possibly exceed our cap. The reason the cap increased from
22 '01 to '02 was for the exceptional item for parks. There were
23 81 positions that the Legislature gave us that were for
24 specific park openings and for the World Birding Center.
25 Those positions are allocated just to those places.
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1 And as you'll recall, the State Auditor noted
2 that -- that we didn't have a documented methodology for
3 allocating supercombo sales to the stamp funds and so at this
4 time I'm going to ask Gary Graham to assist in presenting this
5 recommendation on this year's allocation.
6 MR. GRAHAM: I'm Gary Graham, Director of the
7 Wildlife Division. The State Auditor's report directed us to
8 do an analysis of the allocation of funds into the various
9 stamp funds and to develop a methodology to reliably track the
10 allocation of those funds.
11 With respect to the analysis we found that the
12 funds had been held constant since the inception of the
13 supercombo license in 1996 except last year those funds were
14 increased by 8.6 percent. We have found that the actual stamp
15 sales are well documented but if we look at the true picture,
16 the complete picture, the potential for stamp sales by those
17 supercombo buyers is -- is not very well documented, and that
18 the methodologies used to estimate those potential sales are
19 inconsistent across the stamp funds. And even within a
20 particular stamp fund they're not particularly rigorous.
21 Consequently, there is in fact a real need to establish a
22 uniform and reliable methodology for estimating the potential
23 stamp sales. Consequently, we have recommended and staff have
24 worked on -- on developing a methodology whereby we would
25 conduct surveys of the supercombo license holders for two
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1 years to reliably estimate a number of probable stamp users.
2 Then we would take that number and -- and -- and add it to the
3 actual buyers of the stamps and multiply that by the
4 discounted stamp value to come up the amount that would
5 actually be placed into the various stamp funds. In order to
6 do that it's going to take a couple years before we can have
7 confidence in those numbers of the potential stamp buyer and
8 during that time over the next two years we will hold the
9 stamp funds that are being allocated, the funds that are being
10 allocated to the stamp funds at the same level as they are in
11 FY01.
12 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: There's a possibility that if
13 that's done that some of funds will actually get less than
14 they're getting now?
15 MR. GRAHAM: Yes. These just show you the
16 range of discounted values as we -- as we look at them today.
17 We took the value of the supercombo and divided that by the
18 value of all the stamps and the licenses combined, and then
19 came up with these discounted values. And so that's what the
20 numbers of potential and actual users if we -- if we have that
21 number would multiply it by these values to determine the
22 amount that would actually go into each of the funds. And
23 this just shows you the distribution of -- of those funds
24 allocations over the past six years including the increase
25 FY01 that shows where they would be held constant over the
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1 next two years.
2 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: So the proposal is
3 simply to hold steady for two years while they survey?
4 MR. GRAHAM: Yes.
5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Can we make some
6 explicit statement rejecting the proportional allocation of
7 the supercombo in our methodology?
8 MR. GRAHAM: Say that again.
9 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: The auditor's
10 criticism or question is if we allocate proportionally, you
11 know, we're underallocating to some of these funds. I would
12 like to have the Commission recognize and acknowledge and deal
13 with that issue. If we're going to -- I think we need to
14 acknowledge that methodology as one way of doing it and decide
15 if we intend to do it that way or not so we're on record.
16 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Are you suggesting we go on
17 record as opposing.
18 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: If we're not going to
19 do it, I think we ought to not -- clearly say we're not doing
20 and the reasons we're not doing it.
21 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: As opposed just by doing it
22 by osmosis or whatever.
23 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: We don't have to but I
24 think -- I think there's flaws in that methodology. I think
25 we ought to say what the flaws are.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I totally agree with you
2 that --
3 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: We deliberate and
4 make a decision.
5 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: The proportional methodology
6 would not be proper, would not be correct.
7 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: I'm satisfied it's not
8 either, it's just --
9 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Well, does anyone -- is there
10 any objection to that that to stating that we reject the idea
11 of proportional distribution of the funds based on the sales
12 of supercombo license as one methodology?
13 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: And what the reason is.
14 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Yeah.
15 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: I would rather not just
16 say that but rather they say that we are now implementing
17 something that perhaps will be more accurate because I'm not,
18 I mean that was the best perhaps that we had at that point and
19 I'm not convinced that it's necessarily, well, we know it's
20 not accurate but that's the best that we had.
21 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: But what we've actually done
22 is -- is give hold harmless on it so that they were getting
23 the same amount that they were getting before, but the auditor
24 is suggesting that we should have done is as the sales of
25 supercombo licenses went up, that we should have
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1 proportionally given additional money to each of the stamp
2 funds in relation to the rate at which the sales of supercombo
3 license went up. And the Commission has felt that that was
4 totally inaccurate because or false because the people who are
5 buying the supercombo licenses and thereby getting the stamps
6 are not intentionally buying the stamps and would not have
7 been buying the stamps had the supercombo license not existed.
8 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: And that's the point,
9 it's the sale of --
10 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: What Commissioner Montgomery
11 is suggesting is that we state as opposed to just having done
12 that that we state that our opinion is that a proportional
13 adjustment based on the increased sales of supercombo licenses
14 would not have been a correct way to do it and that we don't
15 think that it should be done at this time either. And because
16 of that we're conducting this two-year study to see if there
17 is some better way to allocate rather than the hold harmless
18 that we've been doing in the past which I think had a
19 substantial basis in the rationality as to why it should be
20 done that way. But I don't think there's any -- no one
21 objects to going ahead and stating it further to see if there
22 isn't a better way which as I point out may very well result
23 in some of the stamps actually getting less money than they're
24 getting down the hold harmless. Does that sate what you
25 were --
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1 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Yeah. People buying
2 the supercombo would not necessarily be buying, you know,
3 archery, saltwater, muzzle loader licenses or any of the
4 others, therefore proportional allocation is not -- would not
5 be good judgment on our part. And we are explicitly
6 acknowledging that here, that that's not a valid methodology
7 in your opinion, in our judgment.
8 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Does anyone object to that to
9 be part of the record that that's our position? While we're
10 discussing this -- this allocation or whatever, this may not
11 be the appropriate time to do it, but I would certainly like
12 to see that we evaluate the white wing stamp for the purpose
13 of possibly going to the Legislature and asking that that
14 statutory authority or the obligation to have that stamp, if
15 that's the current status, that that be -- that we consider
16 having that removed because it appears to me that the white
17 wings are no longer in need of that kind of support and might
18 replace with it a quail stamp. I'm being facetious there
19 probably.
20 MR. GRAHAM: We appreciate that guidance. In
21 fact, we have talked about the need for an upland game bird
22 stamp where you would -- you would not have it just restricted
23 to white wing dove but we would be able to use it for turkey,
24 doves, mourning doves, and quail. And, you know, we have
25 enough time to really work with you and the public to see if
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1 that's a feasible idea between now and the session.
2 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: I like that idea.
3 MR. GRAHAM: Thank you.
4 MS. WHITTENTON: Okay. Just quickly in your --
5 with your recommended budget we've got a budget policy. The
6 policy is the same as we've had for several years but includes
7 a change in wording. The current policy states that budgeted
8 adjustments that exceed $100,000 require the notification of
9 the -- to the chairman of the Commission and chairman of the
10 Finance Committee and then adjustments that exceed $150,000
11 actually require signatures of each of the two chairs. The
12 only difference in this year's budget policy is that we're
13 asking for an exclusion for new or additional Federal funds
14 and that would allow the staff to budget those funds without
15 bringing adjustments to each of the two chairman.
16 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Those grants go with specific
17 authority and directions as to how they be spent anyway.
18 MS. WHITTENTON: They're very limiting in what
19 you can do with them. Also have an investment policy. The
20 investment policy is required by statute for all agents -- for
21 agencies that have -- they have to be reviewed annually and
22 this applies to all Parks and Wildlife funds not the
23 foundation funds or the operation game fee funds.
24 The policy provides for all the funds to be
25 deposit in the treasury. We have some existing stock that
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1 could possibly be sold. We have been just retaining that.
2 We've had some stock it's only about $27,000 worth that we've
3 had since the '50s. We currently aren't making much money on
4 that stock and think that it perhaps would be better off in
5 just convert it to cash and deposited to the treasury. So
6 that's one of the changes. That's the only change to this
7 investment policy is that that stock may possibly be sold if
8 can we can find an opportunity to sell that. We periodically
9 will report to you-all on the status of our funds.
10 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: That completes your report.
11 MS. WHITTENTON: That concludes.
12 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Before asking the Commission
13 to offer questions or suggestions or whatever, I wanted to say
14 that the staff from top to bottom has -- has done an
15 extraordinary job I think in reviewing the spending policies
16 and the spending needs of the department and have really done
17 a highly commendable job in my opinion of reaching the
18 recommendations that have been presented to you today. And I
19 also want to point out that the Commission has -- members have
20 had a lot of involvement this year in the budgeting process
21 and I want to particularly think the vice chairman of the
22 Finance Committee, Phil Montgomery, for the extensive amount
23 of time that he has put in working with staff particularly
24 with Suzy and getting us to this point. I think it's an
25 extraordinary accomplishment that they need to be commended
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1 for and I certainly appreciate the effort that Suzy and her
2 staff, but all of the department personnel have put into this
3 effort. Do we have any questions or further comments on the
4 budget?
5 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: If I could I do want to
6 add my thanks to Suzy and the department heads. I know
7 you-all put a lot of time in on it and we asked for a lot of
8 material. But thank you very much. It was helpful to me
9 being new to the game to get up to speed and, Andy, you too.
10 Thanks.
11 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I think there's been
12 exceptional involvement on everybody's part. It's much
13 appreciated. Are there any other comments or questions? If
14 not and there's no objection, this item will be placed on the
15 Commission's agenda for public comment and action tomorrow.
16 We'll move on to Item No. 3 which is the discussion of fees,
17 fee system and so on. And Suzy again will review that.
18 Item 3: Fee Review
19 MS. WHITTENTON: Okay. Thank you. As we just
20 saw, the reality of the budget situation is that we've got --
21 we're only looking at about a million dollars less in total
22 than we had in 2001. However, the differences are that we're
23 spending a lot more on -- we have a lot more grant money this
24 budget, quite a bit fewer capital dollars, and fewer operating
25 dollars. We did get new money for the State Parks
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1 $4.2 million and then we had to absorb those legislative
2 increases on employee pay raises and benefits.
3 Here's just some of the issues that have led up
4 to this discussion on possible fee reviews. There were the
5 legislatively mandated pay raises. This is for the current
6 year or the FY02 was a 4 percent pay raise. There's also a
7 potential 3 percent pay raise included in the coming -- in the
8 following year, in FY03 that is contingent upon the
9 Comptroller certifying funds. I've been told by the
10 Comptroller staff that it is likely that she will certify
11 funds. So I think we have to kind of plan ahead for that.
12 That will cost us an additional $3 million on top of the
13 $4 million that this coming year has already cost.
14 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: The certification of those
15 funds would not require that she certify we have the funds
16 available, we'll have to find the funds.
17 MS. WHITTENTON: That's correct.
18 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I want to point that out.
19 MS. WHITTENTON: We did have increased health
20 insurance cost of about $2.5 million that will compound, you
21 know, as we get into the following year. As you saw, we have
22 a lack of cash balances that we once had. We were directed by
23 the Legislature a few years back to spend down those balances,
24 which we've done. There's not much left there. I'm going to
25 show you in a few slides here that most of our fees have not
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1 kept up the pace of inflation, but it's something to consider.
2 The last fee increases were done in 1996 for the most part and
3 that was kind of an across the board Commission increased
4 license fees, boat fees, and park fees in 1996. The only fee
5 increases that have happened since then have been in the park
6 fees where park fees are set by range and they vary from park
7 to park. And the staff has the authority to raise fees within
8 those set ranges and so the park -- the parks division does
9 yearly adjustments to those fees within ranges and they always
10 do market studies before they do those.
11 When we look at the cost of these identified
12 funding needs when you add in the 4 percent pay raise with 3
13 percent pay raise, increased health insurance, and other
14 employee benefits. So if you take into account that we didn't
15 fund capital items at the level that we normally fund them,
16 we're looking at a difference of about $24 million in
17 long-term needs.
18 MR. SANSOM: Now, Suzy, may I stop you here and
19 ask if the bond issue, Proposition 8, passes then that could
20 potentially remove the item on the list that you see as
21 unfunded capital items.
22 MS. WHITTENTON: That's true. It would help
23 significantly there.
24 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Let me add one thing
25 too. This doesn't include the accumulation of any reserve
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1 during the year for emergencies.
2 MR. SANSOM: No.
3 MS. WHITTENTON: Right. I did add the last
4 line item there, the minimum supplemental needs as sort of to
5 deal with some of the new things that need to be done that we
6 aren't able to do. It's just kind of a minimal level there.
7 And in looking at consumer price index and how it compares to
8 the fees, I looked at fees from 1996. This one is resident
9 hunting licenses. In 19 -- I'm sorry, from 1965. From 1965
10 the hunting license was $5.15. If that had kept the pace
11 of -- with inflation that would cost more like $30 today.
12 Right now it's $19. So there's quite a gap there.
13 However, fishing licenses are a little
14 different story. In 1965 a fishing license only cost $2.15
15 and I guess somewhere along the line in early '90s that was
16 adjusted to be equal to the same price as a hunting license.
17 So this one did surpass the consumer price index. Most other
18 fees do not. In boat registrations, boat registration fees
19 are set by the size of the boat and they're paid every other
20 year. So I pulled the most two common boat sizes which are
21 the two smallest ones, up to -- up to 16 feet and then the
22 next range is from 16 to 20 feet boats, and you can see the
23 pink line is the consumer price index. The actual fees have
24 not quite kept up although they're on a similar line. We do
25 transfer of ownership fees with boats also. It's a $5 fee.
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1 If this fee had kept up with the same pace of consumer price
2 index it would be about $6 today.
3 In looking at specific fees as compared to just
4 the 1996 level when we created the supercombo license it was
5 set at $49 in 1996. If that had received incremental
6 inflationary increases it would cost $55 today, a little over
7 $55 today and that's in '01. I can't get '02 numbers yet. A
8 boat registration of $40 would cost $45 and park entrance of
9 $5 would be about $5.67. And that's just since '96.
10 I've been asked what -- what would a fee
11 increase possibly produce in terms of dollars, so I just --
12 I'm not advocating any kind of across the board percentage
13 increase, but this is just kind of some ballpark numbers on
14 what if we did anywhere between, you know, a 10 to 25 percent
15 increase what that might produce. It would probably bring in
16 somewhere between $6 to $7, $21 million just depending on --
17 on how those fees -- depending on the elasticity factor what
18 the market could bear. And what would that mean for specific
19 existing fees, supercombo a 10 percent increase to the
20 supercombo would be $54; 20 percent would be $59 and
21 25 percent increase would be $61. You can see those other
22 examples there of what those ranges of increases would
23 translate into in terms of a specific fee. When we study the
24 fee increases we'll look at elasticity. I looked at just what
25 happened after the 1996 increases and licensed sales dropped
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1 4.8 percent after that fee increase but they were up again by
2 the following year after that back up to about level. I don't
3 know if that was directly related to the fee increase 1996 was
4 a drought year, it could be that, you know, fishing and
5 hunting opportunities weren't as good that year. I don't
6 know, we need a little bit more time to study this. We didn't
7 see much impact to the boat registration and titling the
8 numbers after that increase in '96 and we haven't seen much
9 impact to park entrance rates people coming to the park after
10 the increases.
11 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Suzy, would you elaborate a
12 little bit on what the process is on the park fee increase
13 which is different from the others.
14 MS. WHITTENTON: Because the park fees are set
15 by range every year, the parks department reviews those fees
16 on a park by park basis and they actually look at the market
17 conditions around each park and they look to see what, you
18 know, the other camp sites are charging and they try to set
19 their fees at a competitive rate. And they've been doing that
20 yearly so we don't see much impact. Do you want to add
21 anything, Walt, to that?
22 MR. DABNEY: Those fees vary depending on where
23 you are. They may be for similar size it might be different
24 in different locations in the state.
25 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I think the key point is
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1 though that you're updating them every year in effect or
2 frequently.
3 MR. DABNEY: We have and we've got some ideas
4 of some things we could do pretty quickly now that can make a
5 difference.
6 MS. WHITTENTON: The range is set by the
7 Commission but then within the range the staff makes minor
8 adjustments or has the authority to make minor adjustments.
9 Our strategy for looking at these fees is to --
10 to start by meeting with some of the constituent groups. We
11 have had one very brief meeting with the boating trades
12 association people. We want to study the fee structures, look
13 into elasticity factors and then eventually hold some public
14 hearings. The time table is just kind of a proposal is that
15 we would start scoping now on all of our fees. Also, remember
16 that the Legislature directed us to increase commercial
17 fishing fees -- yeah, commercial fishing fees. I'm sorry. We
18 would maybe lay out some options, could lay o ut some options
19 on boat fees or state park fees and then between November and
20 January we'd look at license fees both recreational and
21 commercial lay those out later in the year maybe in the
22 spring. We can't really make those effective until August if
23 we -- if you-all should decide to make any changes to those
24 fees. That's just kind of a proposed time line. And that was
25 all I had on the subject.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Are there any questions or
2 comments with respect to this fee review? Any advice or
3 instructions.
4 CHAIR IDSAL: I want to mention that I will be
5 creating a State Parks Advisory group in the near future and I
6 hope that that will provide a venue for feedback and scoping
7 and getting a good feel for elasticity in -- in park fees and
8 whatnot. I just wanted to mention that now.
9 MR. SANSOM: Members, we will start a process
10 of scoping almost immediately to bring our customers in here.
11 We will go over the fixed costs that have been increasing so
12 they hopefully understand what the issues that we're facing
13 are and get their input across the board long before we
14 formulate any proposals that we might bring back before you.
15 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: I was just going to
16 pass on a couple of observations having gone through the
17 budget exercise. Again if you go back to this funding
18 needs -- identified funding needs shortfall going forward it
19 is very clear to me that our option -- let me put it in the
20 negative. If we don't increase fees we've got to squeeze down
21 something and it's not real pretty. You know, the staff did a
22 great job of going through several iterations of juggling
23 priorities, the management team, two or three rounds of
24 juggling priorities figuring out how to live with various
25 options now living with largely the same service package and
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1 not deferring capital maintenance of significant number that
2 we said let's leave in there. And living with the same
3 dollars by deferring capital, you know, stretching out
4 employment and juggling for this year while we wait for the
5 bond money which we hope will pass in November and to deal
6 with this fee increase issue. But so that nobody misses the
7 point here without that we will not be able to sort of catch
8 our breath next year and move forward 'cause we've got --
9 there's some continuing inflation in salaries and other costs
10 that are going to have to meet that. And that's the only way
11 we can deal with a lot of the supplementals that are purely
12 being deferred right now that when we got back to the policy
13 discussion we had last time there was a lot of comments about
14 not cutting services and continue to charge fair prices for
15 what we do. I think that is really where the rubber is going
16 to meet the road next year that we're going to need to
17 increase fees at some level in order to do the job we're
18 supposed to do.
19 So, you know, very clearly to me a fee increase
20 is going to be called for here. And while we're not
21 specifying it and shouldn't specify it until we've got a lot a
22 public comment, there is no question in my mind that it's
23 coming up and we need to be ready for it. And in these public
24 hearings make sure that we describe the trade-offs probably
25 more than they're described here to people what you get at one
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1 fee and what you don't get. So that it's not just by the way
2 we're going to raise prices on you, but you're really getting
3 something for it and the department's worked hard to make sure
4 it's operating as efficiently as it can. Probably more on
5 that we all need to do going forward in the fall prior to
6 January 'cause it's an ongoing exercise, but I think that --
7 for what it's worth.
8 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Those are all very good
9 points and I think one other one is that the shortfall is not
10 a onetime thing it's -- it tends to be cumulative. So that
11 the longer you wait to address it the -- the more substantial
12 it becomes and you reach a point after a while where you can't
13 actually address it which is the situation that the department
14 found itself in with respect to capital improvements and
15 maintenance which we finally caught it up with that and it
16 would be a shame to fall back into that same problem.
17 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: We're seeing in this
18 budget we're not letting ourselves fall behind. We're not
19 going to get back in that trap.
20 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: That's right.
21 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: And appreciate
22 everybody's discipline in that department 'cause you know it's
23 a mess and I think the other thing the Commission ought to
24 understand is really no slack for drought or other seasonal
25 problems that can have a big impact on our budget in the
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1 absence of fee increase when Suzy and Ernie and I looked at
2 it, the only way you really build in a reverse is to put these
3 fee increases in place in January. The department had
4 historically done a great job --
5 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: The ones that we can.
6 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Yeah. Running expenses
7 so that we had a cushion. That's been pushed out by the
8 Legislature and really don't have that ability in the
9 political arena to operate in, although, I personally think we
10 ought to go back to something like that going forward just to
11 send -- this my personal vote -- signal to everybody that we
12 need to do that. I would hole lot rather defend that in front
13 of the legislature and I volunteer before the committee than
14 defend why we're shutting down operations 'cause that's really
15 the choice if we have a problem.
16 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: There are factors that effect
17 that income that are totally beyond anybody's control or
18 anybody's ability to predict and that's a very important
19 point.
20 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: The only way we build
21 in that reserve is again through fee increases that will come
22 in the first half of the year why we run a lean budget to let
23 us kind of reload the reserve going forward.
24 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Your point is well
25 taken if you don't do it now then you go back into that
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1 cumulative debt.
2 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: It's a much uglier
3 problem a year from now than it is if we go ahead and deal
4 with it now and get on it.
5 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Commissioner Watson?
6 COMIMSSIONER WATSON: Also, you know, I don't
7 think that we should be -- I don't think our situation should
8 change because of Proposition 8 because, you know, that is
9 debt. I mean we got to pay that money back. So I think that
10 we should have our fee structures, you know, positioned for
11 what our needs are going to be and if Proposition 8 happens,
12 it happens, but again whatever we get out of that we've got
13 to, you know, we got to pay that back. And I just -- I just
14 think that it's such and uncomfortable operating position to
15 always be, you know, under the knife that it looks like to me
16 that the -- even at 25 percent, you know, these don't seem to
17 be unreasonable amounts of money, you know, that we're asking
18 people to pay. I just don't see -- I don't see anything
19 objectionable about, you know, the supercombo license at $61.
20 I mean, that's -- I think if we had the right to focus
21 focussing groups, I mean, I think we can clearly demonstrate
22 that $61 for the supercombo license is still one heck of a
23 buy. So I don't think we ought to be timid about this at all.
24 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Any other comments? If not,
25 we will move on to the next item on the agenda which is
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1 grants. And, Suzy, thank you again for all your efforts.
2 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Ernie, I do have a
3 question. What is the process that we would go through to
4 raise the fees and what would the timing need to be?
5 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: That chart we had up there
6 showed us. There's a couple of the areas of fees that could
7 only be done in -- for it to be effective in August of next
8 year. The balance of those could be done in the January
9 meeting and become effective.
10 MR. SANSOM: But in all cases --
11 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Would that be January or --
12 MR. SANSOM: For parks and boats. In all cases
13 the process would be complete by April.
14 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: All right.
15 MR. SANSOM: So there would be no action beyond
16 April.
17 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Right. It wouldn't become
18 effective until August for the two bottom categories but the
19 others could become effective earlier.
20 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Well, I knew -- I knew
21 the two bottom came, I just got my license.
22 CHAIR IDSAL: You don't have to come up with
23 any more.
24 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: There won't be an extra
25 assessment.
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1 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: I'd be glad to put in an
2 extra assessment if it would help on the budget. Really what
3 I was asking is backing up from this when would we be
4 considering fee increases to get the first opportunity?
5 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: In order for those boat fees
6 and park fees to become effective in January they would have
7 to be --
8 MR. SANSOM: Back up before you in November at
9 the previous meeting.
10 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Okay. Yeah.
11 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: So November would be the
12 earliest then. I think that would be the answer to your
13 question. November meeting would be the --
14 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Are these things that
15 would not be published in the Texas Register.
16 MS. WHITTENTON: It would have to be.
17 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: And so how would we get
18 to the place where we would approve them in the November
19 meeting?
20 MS. WHITTENTON: You couldn't. I don't think
21 we were suggesting that they be adopted in November but that
22 they be adopted in January then they could be effective, I
23 think, it's 20 days after the vote, the final adoption day.
24 They could actually be effective in February.
25 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: The action in November would
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1 be to publish them if that is what the Commission --
2 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: And I think that's where
3 I was getting lost was I was trying to back up into the public
4 notice and the approval out of public meeting and that sort of
5 thing. It was too many numbers for me. And then you add
6 those to the dates.
7 MR. SANSOM: Here's a way to think of it.
8 Notice for boats principally and any changes in Commission
9 action that might be required for parks and boats in November,
10 action in January. Notice for recreational hunting and
11 fishing fees any commercial fees in January for action in
12 April.
13 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Thank you.
14 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Any other questions? If not,
15 Jim, are you prepared on the grants presentation?
16 Item 4: Grants
17 MR. HOGSETT: Yes, sir. Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman. Members of the Committee, I'm Tim Hogsett,
19 Director of the Recreation Grants Program in the State Parks
20 Division. I'm here today to talk to you about the grant
21 programs that you will consider for funding tomorrow.
22 The first of which is part of the Texas
23 Recreation and Parks Account our largest grant program of
24 outdoor recreation grants to local units of government.
25 You'll of course recall these are 50 percent matching grants
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1 to local governments for parks and recreation lands and
2 facilities. And these applications are taken twice a year and
3 we bring funding recommendations to you twice a year.
4 The group that you will be considering tomorrow
5 includes 43 applications, all of which were received for our
6 January 31st, 2001 deadline, total request of $16.1 million in
7 matching funds. All of the applications have been scored by
8 the staff and we have rank ordered them, and you can find
9 those in Exhibit A of the agenda item for tomorrow.
10 And essentially we're recommending approval of
11 the top 14 applications in the amount of $5.58 million
12 tomorrow. And this is the entirety of the amount of money
13 that we have available at this time.
14 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Mr. Chairman, question.
15 Mr. Hogsett, very briefly would you describe for us the
16 process, internal process, that you use with staff in
17 determining whether or not a grant needs to be?
18 MR. HOGSETT: I'll be glad to.
19 COMMISSIONER HENRY: And even before that,
20 please. When you say local governments are the units that are
21 eligible for these grants, tell us the various entities that
22 constitute what you consider to be local governments.
23 MR. HOGSETT: Local governments typically are
24 cities, counties, river authorities. In some cases municipal
25 utility districts. Basically the law says that for a local
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1 government to be eligible for our assistance they have to have
2 as part of their responsibility providing public outdoor
3 recreation. An exception to eligibility, for example, might
4 be a school district. They are not considered eligible as
5 local governments because that's not their primary
6 responsibility. In terms of the process that we go through,
7 we take applications, again, twice a year for the program with
8 a deadline being set. Those then applications are grouped
9 together and considered as a group. Typically we have will
10 have 45 to 50 applications every six months. And we have a
11 scoring system that the Commission has adopted based on public
12 input that's used to evaluate those projects. It's
13 essentially an issues based scoring system.
14 The -- some of the more important criteria or
15 ranking criteria include things such as whether or not the
16 local government has a locally adopted parks and recreation
17 master plan where they've gone through the process of
18 establishing priorities for what they think needs to be done
19 locally. If they then ask for high priority items out of that
20 master plan, that enhances the score for their application.
21 Additional priorities are given for projects that are related
22 to water, water type recreation. Additional priority is given
23 to projects that have a conservation element related to them,
24 things such as wetlands, natural areas, set asides of open
25 space in urban areas. Additional priority is given based on
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1 demographic issues such as ethnic minority, low income, and
2 elderly. And there are, you know, a number of other criteria
3 but basically it's a way that we can with a large number of
4 applications received hopefully make some intelligent
5 recommendations to you based on the system that you've adopted
6 of which projects that should receive priority. Typically
7 we're only able to fund a third or less of the applications
8 received in any given review.
9 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Mr. Chairman.
10 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Yes, ma'am.
11 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Excuse me. I noticed in
12 this group and let me say that I've always found your scoring
13 system to be very commendable and I've heard complements about
14 it being fair and objective to the extent you can be with
15 something this complicated. But in this -- in this group I
16 had several questions. One of them was that there are, I
17 think, three Travis County proposals in the top ranked group
18 and I wondered if you had within your evaluation and
19 recommendation system or process a way to sort to make sure
20 that we're not perhaps clustered within a particular part of
21 the State but that over time the money is spread around the
22 State because it is such a big state.
23 MR. HOGSETT: First I will say this is a little
24 unusual. I noted the same thing that we have Round Rock U
25 Brushy Creek, Fern Bluff and then here is one another in the
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1 Austin --
2 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Williamson County.
3 MR. HOGSETT: The only rule that the Commission
4 has adopted to now related to allocation is that any given
5 local government can only submit one application in each
6 review. Other than that, we really don't consider geography
7 in -- in this mix. It is, of course, something that you
8 could -- could propose that we do and take public input and --
9 and do that. Generally I think that in most reviews there is
10 a pretty wide mix around the State of geography in terms of
11 funding but I had noted in the same thing.
12 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Would it be difficult to
13 go back over several years and see whether this has
14 happened --
15 MR. HOGSETT: Not at all. Not at all.
16 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: -- before? Because I
17 think that it would be well for the Commission to consider
18 whether we need to be attentive to geographic distribution
19 given how this one fell out in this particular group of them.
20 But let me say also that I thought that having -- being able
21 to support what -- was it in Williamson County looked like
22 several different pieces of the same type of project that we
23 had considered previously and that was so exciting with the
24 caves and other things. I really thought that was most
25 beneficial, you know, to concentrate this one cycle in a place
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1 where you were going to have some real potential for return
2 on -- on public recreation and interpretative possibilities
3 for that one locale. But I just -- I just think it's
4 something that, you know, if there is that return it's one
5 that we should be aware of and recognize and support. But if
6 we on the other hand are just kind of stumbling a little bit
7 by the scoring system and to concentrating the money in Travis
8 County and the environs around Travis County and not getting
9 it out to West Texas or South Texas or East Texas that we
10 should be mindful of that and that shouldn't happen by just
11 circumstance.
12 MR. HOGSETT: Very well taken point and we can
13 analyze that and I would propose that we come back and talk to
14 you about that in January when we bring the next group.
15 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Mr. Ramos.
16 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Yes. In line of that is
17 your scoring system such that if, for example, if a particular
18 government applied for a grant and did not get it, does
19 that -- does that then become a higher priority or can you
20 theoretically stay at a low priority, do you automatically
21 move because you've been looked over or passed over two or
22 three times?
23 MR. HOGSETT: What we do is if an applicant
24 falls below the line, we offer them the opportunity to
25 resubmit their application in the next review. And we also
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1 offer them the opportunity to come in and sit down with the
2 staff and go through the evaluation of how the project was
3 ranked and give them some suggestions of how they might want
4 to improve it. Many of these applications, in fact if you
5 look at the list on Exhibit 2 it's on Page 50 in the priority
6 in the full Commission meeting all the applications that have
7 an asterisk by them are resubmissions. And many of the
8 projects that do come back as resubmissions improve their
9 score and come back and receive funding at a later time.
10 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Does staff share with the
11 applicant ideas as to how they could better improve their
12 chances?
13 MR. HOGSETT: Absolutely. That is the key of
14 what we do when we have those meetings. We, you know, make
15 suggestions of how they might want to restructure what they're
16 asking for or make sure that we were absolutely cognizant of
17 what they were trying to tell us in their application, what
18 they were trying to do. With this many to review, sometimes
19 it's a little difficult to understand without having that.
20 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Does any part of your
21 scoring system include taking the historical data as you might
22 say of funding for particular counties and see, for example,
23 if over the last five years a particular area of the State has
24 gotten five times more money than another part of the State?
25 MR. HOGSETT: No, we don't and I think that's
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1 what Ms. Dinkins was asking about as well.
2 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: I think that would be
3 helpful to ensure a balance.
4 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: One of the things that
5 probably comes into play to some extent that's beyond your
6 ability to change but by proximity the communities in the near
7 vicinity of Austin are much more -- have an advantage of being
8 able to come in and take the benefit of your people in helping
9 them, I would think. Is there some merit to that or --
10 MR. HOGSETT: Yeah. I don't know. We see
11 these folks a lot more than we see the ones from --
12 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: That's nothing we can do
13 anything about.
14 MR. HOGSETT: Sure.
15 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: That -- at the
16 expense of piling on here on this issue, but my perspective
17 having lived in a rural county for many years and seeing that
18 this in these smaller and poorer counties is usually done by a
19 group of volunteers. And in the more urban counties you
20 essentially have professional or at least paid people who are
21 adept at the grant process. In addition, to the -- to the
22 geographic distribution you mentioned, Carol, I'm concerned
23 about I think, Donato, what you're getting it is some of these
24 underserved counties primarily rural counties that just are
25 not adept at the process.
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1 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Which is addressed to some
2 degree on the small grants. That was the intent of that of
3 course.
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Isn't the break at 50,000
5 population.
6 MR. HOGSETT: For the small grant program, yes,
7 50,000 is what we did under our pilot. And that's -- if we do
8 come back to you with a recommendation to continue that
9 program, that's one of the key things we need to consider
10 whether that is a good break point or not.
11 COMMISSIONER HENRY: But smaller communities
12 can apply for the local?
13 MR. HOGSETT: Yes. Yes, absolutely.
14 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Therefore we get the
15 Cranfills Gap. Pardon my ignorance, but tell me, where is
16 Cranfills Gap?
17 MR. HOGSETT: I'm not sure.
18 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: It's up by Meridian if you
19 know where Meridian is. Bosque County. Up in that area.
20 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Close to Walnut
21 Springs.
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I was wondering why they
23 weren't in the smaller -- the smaller communities can come
24 into the bigger picture.
25 MR. HOGSETT: Actually the small grants program
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1 is not just small communities, it's also -- it is small
2 communities in that 50,000 or less, but it's also trying to
3 meet the need of communities that say we just need one thing.
4 All we need is a ball field or all we need is a pavilion. We
5 don't want to ask for a half million dollars for a huge park
6 development. That was the other thing that we were hoping to
7 address with that that smaller communities program.
8 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Smaller in money.
9 MR. HOGSETT: And it's important that we keep
10 that simple so that applicants in those situations have a
11 simple process that they don't necessarily have to go out and
12 hire a consultant or -- or not have the -- because you're
13 right, they don't have the full-time resources that the larger
14 communities have.
15 COMMISSIONER HENRY: But doesn't that defeat
16 part of the process that you discussed earlier with regard to
17 scoring, you know, open spaces, water conservation and all
18 these items that cause your scoring to be higher? When you
19 talk about a community that just wants a ball field, I don't
20 see how they could ever score above.
21 MR. HOGSETT: That's exactly the point that we
22 got when we last went out and did public hearings. We said,
23 you know, how is the larger program working for you and the
24 smaller communities said, well, if we need to ask for a huge
25 park or for the -- or acquisition of a major piece of property
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1 it works well for is. If we just need one thing it's not
2 working very well for us and that was the idea behind the
3 pilot program to reach some of these people that we knew that
4 we were not reaching that needed and deserved those
5 opportunities.
6 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I see.
7 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: Jim, it was really
8 exciting to read the small grant applications this time.
9 MR. HOGSETT: Uh-huh.
10 COMMISIONER DINKINS: You know, and to see what
11 had happened in response to that pilot program.
12 MR. HOGSETT: We got really what we were
13 looking for in that program.
14 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Let me say going in also
15 that this is something that we discussed not long after I came
16 on the Commission and I support, along with my colleagues, I
17 believe as I sit here completely the idea that this should be
18 a staff function rather than a Commission function, otherwise
19 we get into the realm --
20 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: We get too many phone
21 calls.
22 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Strictly politics in some
23 cases and I think that's to be avoided at all costs.
24 MR. SANSOM: We appreciate that.
25 MR. HOGSETT: We appreciate that very much.
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1 MR. SANSOM: As do the communities at large.
2 MR. HOGSETT: Would you like me to go ahead and
3 continue with the next one.
4 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Yes. Why don't you move
5 along.
6 MR. HOGSETT: The small communities program, as
7 I mentioned, it was a response to public input really that we
8 heard that the smaller communities and people that just wanted
9 to do one or two things were not being able to be competitive
10 in the larger program. And to address that we developed this
11 pilot and you endorsed the idea of doing it in January, of
12 setting aside approximately the equivalent of one of the large
13 grants of $500,000. And to make that make -- those grants
14 available to communities of 50,000 or less and for a maximum
15 of $50,000 in matching funds for each grant. Again, these are
16 50 percent match. We only in the pilot considered development
17 projects eligible. We thought that a combination of an
18 acquisition and development at $50,000 was probably unlikely.
19 However, we did hear from a few folks that were a little
20 unhappy about that, so that's one of the things we'll need to
21 consider when we do go out and do some public hearings and
22 staff how we're going to come back to you with a
23 recommendation for a possible continuation of that program.
24 And we do intend to do that this fall. We've begun the
25 process of scheduling around the State public hearings where
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1 both this program and the regional park grant program that you
2 have approved projects under a pilot twice previously.
3 And we do understand the need to keep this
4 simple, to keep it a process that's successful and easy to
5 understand. It was very successful in the -- if in no other
6 way than sheer numbers. We got 64 applications. People had
7 from the time that you adopted the idea of doing this in
8 January until the 15th of May so it was a short time frame for
9 people to put together 64 applications for $2.2 million,
10 almost $2.3 million for only 500 -- approximately $500,000
11 available. We did have a scoring system that was used very
12 similar in most regards to the larger outdoor recreation grant
13 scoring system. We evaluated them using that system and are
14 proposing tomorrow to recommend that you a prove the top 12
15 applications out of those 64.
16 COMMISSIONER HENRY: Mr. Chairman, one of
17 the -- of the concerns that I have and that our -- led to my
18 questions concerning eligibility of applicants and that's the
19 concern of some concern over municipal utility districts
20 applying because the nature of them are quite different from,
21 for example, from most other governmental units, the cities,
22 the counties, et cetera. Do you guys have any concerns over
23 entities applying which may be wholly or partially privately
24 owned?
25 MR. HOGSETT: Well, municipal utility districts
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1 are constitutionally authorized and they are government
2 entities. I recognize --
3 COMMISSIONER DINKINS: They're governmental
4 subdivisions.
5 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I recognize that.
6 MR. HOGSETT: I recognize what you're saying
7 though, that in many cases early on in the development of a
8 subdivision they are the -- not under the complete control,
9 but under the umbrella control of the developer of that
10 subdivision. On the other hand that is the only conduit that
11 some of the citizens that live in those districts unless they
12 have a county that's willing to submit an application on their
13 behalf have to access the program. So it's something that if
14 we were to make a change like that it would require a change
15 in the law, in my opinion. There are different levels of a
16 affluence among municipal utility districts and I think that
17 if I had a concern I would say that would be my concern that
18 in some cases the municipal utility districts close to the
19 urban areas particularly in the Austin area are fairly
20 affluent to begin with. Those folks are paying taxes.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Do think our match
22 funding requirements disproportionately exclude poor
23 communities at all? What do you see there?
24 MR. HOGSETT: I don't because we do have in
25 both programs significant numbers of applicants and typically
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1 the smaller governments, as one of you mentioned, use
2 volunteers. Volunteer labor, donations of equipment and
3 materials as part or in some cases all of their match. We
4 have a small program within our operation for helping to do
5 planning for small units of government as well. We actually
6 will go out and do a master plan for a site for them and at
7 the same time can talk to them about the resources that they
8 have and recommend how -- how they look at match and whether
9 or not they have some opportunities for match that they may
10 not realize.
11 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: In that sense we have
12 not skewed this progressively, the progress versus regress
13 it's not progressively skewed because of that requirement.
14 MR. HOGSETT: I don't believe so at all.
15 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: Can 100 percent of
16 the match be donated in kind labor volunteer, that sort of
17 thing?
18 MR. HOGSETT: Conceivably, yes, but you've got
19 to have a little bit of seed money to get started because as
20 it's a reimbursement program. If it's --
21 MR. SANSOM: You've got to prime the pump.
22 MR. HOGSETT: Yeah, exactly. If it's a
23 development project, for example, we've got to see the plans
24 and specifications before you begin the work. Somebody has
25 got to pay for that. I've seen case where they will go borrow
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1 a little bit of money and then come back and offset it with a
2 donation. But we get the projects to 100 percent of the match
3 is the value of donated property.
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: I commend your work
5 because before I came on the Commission I was involved in one
6 of those where scraped it together with bake sales and
7 everything else and finally got it.
8 COMMISSIONER FITZSIMONS: But it's -- there
9 is -- it is tough for these small especially communities along
10 the border to pull together the expertise to get it done. I
11 commend your work.
12 MR. HOGSETT: The next program that we're going
13 to ask you to consider funding for tomorrow is the
14 Recreational Trails Fund. These are Federal pass-through
15 monies for the Department of Transportation. Monies are
16 appropriated annually by Congress. This year about
17 $2.4 million have been appropriated and there is some money
18 available from some savings and some other projects that
19 didn't get under -- actually get underway last year. That's
20 the difference between $2.4 and the recommended $2.6. We
21 received 66 applications requesting $6.2 million in 80 percent
22 matching funds this is an 80/20 matching program with
23 80 percent being the Federal share. This -- these projects by
24 law are reviewed and scored by a Trails Advisory Board. The
25 law requires for our eligibility to receive these Federal
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1 funds that there be a Trail Advisory Board formed which has
2 been formed and evaluates the projects and that is it the
3 basis of the recommendations.
4 The scoring system is a bit different in that
5 rather than a point based scoring system it's a tiered
6 structured system of four different levels. In this case
7 we're recommending funding for the top two levels of projects.
8 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: What's the utilization
9 of the trails? Do you have any data on that?
10 MR. HOGSETT: Any?
11 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Utilization, any data
12 on the utilization.
13 MR. HOGSETT: I don't know. Andy, have you got
14 any utilization, do we have data on utilization of trail?
15 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Facilities, yeah.
16 MR. GOLDBLOOM: Facility once they're built?
17 Really, no. No.
18 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Do we have a map
19 showing where they all are?
20 MR. GOLDBLOOM: Not a comprehensive map but
21 we've got like the State Parks System. We've got maps where
22 the system and prizes have been funded from this program are
23 only probably about 10 percent or 5 percent of what's actually
24 existing out on the ground. But there isn't really a good
25 comprehensive inventory.
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1 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Is there a way for the
2 users or the users who intend to use them for them to know
3 what's out there in a comprehensive way or you just have to
4 stumble into them?
5 MR. GOLDBLOOM: They really have to work with
6 their local governments and local areas with the State.
7 There's been a lot of State Park information, they would get
8 information there. For example, for motorized recreation
9 there's not a good inventory. There's a lot of private sites
10 but we just, frankly we haven't had the staff to update the
11 inventory.
12 MR. HOGSETT: More for the record this is Andy
13 Goldblum from Recreation Grants Program. He administers the
14 trail program. And finally this is a program that is not
15 under -- under the jurisdiction of recreation grants but for
16 time purposes I've been asked to present it today. This is
17 the national hunter education target range program. These
18 are, again, Federal grants. This is from the Robinson
19 Wildlife Restoration Act. These are 75 percent matching
20 grants can be either for local governments or private
21 enterprise. And the purpose is to enhance hunter education
22 opportunities through infrastructure related to hunting target
23 ranges and other infrastructure related to hunter education.
24 We are recommending funding for three projects for a total of
25 the annually available $150,000. I'll be glad to answer any
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1 other questions that you have.
2 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Any further questions or
3 comments on the grants program?
4 COMMISSIONER HENRY: They say it's 100?
5 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Just to --
6 MR. HOGSETT: A hundred and fifty.
7 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: I'm not sure exactly
8 what docket the trails program it seems one of the things we
9 can do at pretty low cost at least on our website is show
10 what's out there for the recreational user to have an
11 interest.
12 MR. HOGSETT: It seems to me that that would be
13 an issue for the Trails Advisory Committee to take look at it.
14 VICE-CHAIR MONTGOMERY: Just a thought. One
15 thing the agency ought to do.
16 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: I know of at least one trail
17 we've got that there's a lot of concern by the adjoining
18 landowners that we ought to not have it. At some point we
19 need to discuss that.
20 MR. HOGSETT: Trails tend to do that sometimes.
21 CHAIRMAN ANGELO: Any other discussion? If not
22 this item, if there's no objection this item will be placed on
23 the agenda for tomorrow's meeting for public comment and
24 action.
25 Is there any other business to come before the
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1 Finance Committee?
2 Madame Chairman, I believe that concluded the
3 business of the Finance Committee.
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1 THE STATE OF TEXAS )
2 COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
3 I, KIM SEIBERT, a Certified Court Reporter in and
4 for the State of Texas, do hereby certify that the above and
5 foregoing pages constitute a full, true, and correct
6 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks and Wildlife
7 Commission on August 29, 2001, in the Commission hearing room
8 of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin,
9 Travis County, Texas.
10 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic record was made by
11 meat the time of the public meeting and said stenographic
12 notes were thereafter reduced to computerized transcription
13 under my supervision and control.
14 WITNESS MY HAND this ____ day of ____________________,
15 2001.
16
17
18 ___________________________
KIM SEIBERT, Texas CSR 4589
19 Expiration Date: 12/2002
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20 Suite 220, Centre II
Austin, Texas 78701
21 (512) 328-5557
22
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