Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Finance Committee
May 29, 2002
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
1
7 BE IT REMEMBERED that heretofore on the
8 29TH day of MAY 2002, 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 11:15 a.m., to wit:
14
15 APPEARANCES:
16 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
Chair: Katharine Armstrong Idsal, San Antonio,
17 Texas, Chairman
Ernest Angelo, Jr., Vice Chairman,
18 Midland, Texas
John Avila, Jr., Fort Worth, Texas
19 Joseph B.C. Fitzsimons, San Antonio,
Texas
20 Alvin L. Henry, Houston, Texas (Absent)
Philip Montgomery, III, Dallas, Texas
21 Donato D. Ramos, Laredo, Texas
Kelly W. Rising, M.D., Beaumont, Texas
22 Mark E. Watson, Jr., San Antonio, Texas
23
24 THE PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
Robert L. Cook, Executive Director, and
25 other personnel of the Parks and Wildlife
Department.
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1 MAY 29, 2002
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3 FINANCE COMMITTEE MEETING
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5
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The agenda for
7 which begins with the approval of the committee
8 minutes from the previous meeting.
9 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Move approval.
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Have a motion
11 to be approved. Second?
12 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Second.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: All in favor
14 say aye?
15 ("Aye.")
16 AGENDA ITEM NO. 1 - BRIEFING - CHAIRMAN'S
17 CHARGES.
18 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The minutes
19 are approved. And item number 1 is the Chairman's
20 Charges. And Mr. Cook, if you might --
21 MR. COOK: Thank you, sir. Just a
22 couple of items to report to you on our Chairman's
23 Charges in the Finance Committee. You will hear
24 later on in this presentation will be the item
25 number 5 that will be presented to you in this
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1 committee meeting. As required by Sunset, the
2 Commission must approve all nonprofit
3 organizations that partner with the Department. A
4 current list, as developed by a Natural Leaders
5 Team, will be presented to you for your approval.
6 AGENDA ITEM NO. 2 - BOMER REPORT UPDATE.
7 MR. COOK: And I would like to
8 report to you on the implementation of what we
9 finally referred to here as the Bomer Report. And
10 we gave it a new title. We are now calling
11 this -- referring to this entire effort as the
12 Business Practice Improvement Project. And I
13 would be remiss to not to -- to say to you that
14 we -- we actually, I believe, went into motion,
15 for sure, during the time that the Bomer team was
16 here doing their work. We were already working on
17 a number of these known issues that we have
18 included in this Business Practice Improvement
19 Plan. We were working on a number of those issues
20 several months prior to the arrival of the team.
21 And the team reinforced the need to make those
22 adjustments, make those corrections, and deal with
23 some of those issues.
24 Let me tell you a little bit about
25 what we have done since that time. I don't want
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1 to be repetitious here, but I would like to cover
2 this fairly thoroughly because it is the number
3 one focus that we have at the agency at this
4 present time.
5 The first thing I did, I hired one
6 of the team members who did the -- did the Bomer
7 report, Mr. T.C. Mallett. And Mr. Mallett, if you
8 have not met him, is with us today. And I gained
9 such a tremendous amount of respect and
10 appreciation for T.C.'s knowledge and his
11 understanding of how to make things work, how to
12 get answers, how to help and assist in the
13 development of solutions, that I pleaded with him
14 and got him to come back to us for at least a few
15 months, and hopefully we can stretch that out as
16 long as possibly needed and as long as he can
17 stand us. And I appreciate T.C.
18 The second thing that we did, I
19 appointed -- as you know, in the Bomer report, the
20 Bomer report recommends that we increase our
21 administrative numbers within the -- within Suzy's
22 division and it also recommends that we hire two
23 deputy executive directors, one in operations and
24 one in administration, in which this area would,
25 of course, fall. The report also recommended that
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1 we hire general counsel. One of the first things
2 I did on this one was, I requested -- I guess that
3 would be a nice way to say it, I requested
4 Mr. Scott Boruff's assistance in helping us
5 develop this plan and implement this plan in doing
6 everything we can, putting the resources that were
7 needed to help get this done. I appointed Scott
8 as the Interim Deputy Executive Director of our
9 administrative divisions. To go along with that,
10 we also advertised that position. I'm going to
11 wait a little while on the other one until we --
12 in order to keep our focus on this effort, I'm
13 going to wait a little while on the other one.
14 Our operation guys are good people, very
15 experienced, very strong in their areas, and I
16 have a lot of confidence in them. And so I don't
17 want to detract from this effort. But that
18 position has been advertised. We have been
19 getting some very, very qualified applicants,
20 people calling and asking about it.
21 In addition, we have the general
22 counsel position advertised, which I think we all
23 agree is a very important addition to the agency.
24 And, again, in getting, I believe the last time I
25 counted, we had 30, 40 applicants, of which I can
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1 tell you that a number of them are very qualified,
2 very capable people. We'll be very fortunate to
3 be able to add to our team with that kind of
4 experience.
5 The project team that Suzy and Scott
6 have put together to get this thing rolling is
7 truly an interdivisional team. It includes
8 members from all divisions within the agency. The
9 project plan addresses all of the issues
10 identified in the Bomer report, the State
11 Auditor's reports through the past several years,
12 the Sunset Bill, and other internally identified
13 issues that some of us have.
14 Our primary focus, however, on this
15 effort is on our financial management organization
16 and process issues. We have hired -- Suzy has
17 found and hired six temporary staff to address the
18 backlog of revenue and expenditure reconciliation.
19 And the Comptroller's Office, upon our request,
20 has loaned us two very seasoned, very capable
21 professionally people to assist us at no charge.
22 We asked and the Comptroller produced. And we are
23 very fortunate to have these people. They are
24 very knowledgeable, very capable, and they're
25 doing us a great job.
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1 Our goal on these two efforts, this
2 revenue and expenditure reconciliation, which are
3 two clearly different issues but very connected
4 together. Our goal is to complete that
5 reconciliation by August 31. And I will tell you,
6 as we have gotten into that project, that's a
7 tough one. But that's our goal, that's what we're
8 shooting for. I believe, based on what Suzy and
9 Scott and staff are reporting to me, that we will
10 have the expenditure reconciliation completed by
11 that time. The revenue reconciliation is another
12 matter. It's a little more difficult, a little
13 more tedious and very labor intensive. And we
14 still have that as our goal, but we may or may not
15 make that particular date. But that's a date that
16 I set, and I'll keep a close eye on that.
17 We have a plan developed to support
18 the summary level corrections in order to meet the
19 deadlines -- the absolute deadlines that I feel
20 like we must meet.
21 We have hired a new financial
22 management director. That person will start in
23 mid June. We have a new director of budget and
24 planning job posted, with the hire for that
25 position anticipated in 60 days. And we have the
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1 license manager position posted and expect to hire
2 that position within the next 30 days.
3 Four other positions in the finance
4 division have been posted, two systems analysts
5 and two general ledger accountants. Three of
6 those positions are new positions. You will
7 recall in the Bomer report there were some --
8 there was some comparisons given of agencies of
9 comparable size and comparable complexities where
10 we had two or three or so people in this
11 particular area, most agencies of our size had
12 maybe eight or ten people in that group. So we
13 are beefing up some of those areas, adding staff
14 and adding what we need to do to get that job
15 done.
16 The boat registration and titling
17 system that we were operating with, I think we all
18 agreed was fairly antiquated and resulted in a
19 high rate of what the State Auditor's Office
20 termed as nonvalue added processes. A specialist,
21 a gentleman by the name of Clovis Boatright, was
22 hired to redesign this system. And the only thing
23 I know to tell you is when you shake hands with
24 Clovis Boatright, he works on a farm -- I guess he
25 works at night because he stays up here from
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1 daylight until dark. But this guy knows his
2 business. He is a great value to us and he's
3 being very helpful to us in that particular area,
4 and we appreciate that.
5 The long-term fix requires extensive
6 programming and will be implemented as soon as the
7 system can be completed. An interim workflow has
8 been designed for use with the current automation
9 and will be implemented June the 3rd. It has been
10 tested and will eliminate much of the nonvalue
11 added processes identified by the State Auditor's
12 Office.
13 We've done some redesign in our mail
14 room and our cashier office processes. We will be
15 moving the incoming mail function closer to the
16 revenue section, as per the Bomer report
17 recommendation. Suzy will present the Revenue
18 Estimating Methodology to the Commission today in
19 order to make that process more open.
20 In an attempt to improve
21 communication with oversight agencies, staff are
22 currently making weekly contact with the
23 Legislative Budget Board and State Auditor's
24 Office and legislative briefings have been
25 scheduled with all oversight agencies beginning
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1 June 11th.
2 The detailed project plan is
3 complete. We receive progress reports on this
4 weekly and I suspect Suzy and Scott will tell you
5 almost daily. We're focusing our efforts on what
6 we have prioritized as the top 30 issues. When
7 you go up for lunch today and during your visit,
8 if you haven't already seen it, when you walk into
9 the Executive Office, you will see that I have
10 saved a wall for a basic reporting system on this
11 entire project. You'll seen line charts and bar
12 graphs and -- that all of us have to walk by every
13 day several times so that anytime someone comes to
14 my office with a problem, I can say, you know,
15 focus on this first.
16 And we -- for instance, in our -- we
17 have a regularly scheduled Monday morning division
18 director's meeting, which we take up the issues
19 from the previous week, long-range issues, what's
20 fixing to happen the next week, what our crisises
21 were over the weekend and that kind of thing.
22 First report at our Monday morning DD meeting is
23 on this project.
24 As you have seen, we are focused on
25 this effort, we are dealing with this effort right
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1 now in our FY03 budget planning process. Some of
2 these changes, some of these adjustments require
3 significant funding. And we are all dealing with
4 that. We all recognize the value and importance
5 of it. That money is -- we have failed to make
6 our press work here, and we're taking that money
7 from our existing resources.
8 We are making progress. It's slow
9 at times, and I know for staff who is doing this
10 from daylight until dark, it's frustrating at
11 times. But they are making progress. I'm glad to
12 report that to you.
13 We will report to you on this matter
14 regularly, for sure, at every commission meeting
15 and at every opportunity that you and I have to
16 talk, I will do my best to keep you posted.
17 It is my goal to be able to come to
18 you at the November commission meeting and be able
19 to report to you that the majority of this effort
20 has been completed; that whatever adjustments were
21 called for were needed, have been done, the
22 corrections have been made, that the additions,
23 the additional staff and additional equipment have
24 been acquired. That is my goal. And the various
25 parts of this that we will not have completed by
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1 that time, I want to be able to report to you that
2 the plan for dealing with them, for handling them,
3 the scheduled time-line and the deadlines are in
4 place of how we will deal with them as the months
5 go by.
6 That's my report to you on that very
7 important matter. And any questions or comments
8 I'll be glad to entertain.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: All righty.
10 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I just
11 would say I know how hard y'all must be working on
12 it. But it's very, very important to all of us on
13 the Commission, I think it's fundamental in
14 gaining credibility of the Legislature so we can
15 go execute what's most important to us which is
16 our mission of business. But we've got to do this
17 first to be ready for it. So appreciate all the
18 hard work.
19 MR. COOK: I just want to say thanks
20 to Suzy and her folks and Scott and the people who
21 are working on this. I see them regularly and
22 it's head down and all business. And I appreciate
23 that.
24 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Bob, that
25 really -- that takes care of item number 2 on the
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1 agenda as well as the Chairman's Charges.
2 Correct?
3 MR. COOK: That's correct.
4 AGENDA ITEM NO. 3 - FINANCIAL REVIEW AND
5 UPDATE.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. We'll
7 then move on to item number 3, which is the
8 financial review and update from Suzy.
9 MS. WHITTENTON: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman, Commissioners. I'm here to give you a
11 financial update, which will include status of the
12 major revenue sources in our major operating
13 funds, operating budget and our pending request
14 for legislative appropriations for the coming
15 biennium.
16 First, I'll cover our largest fund,
17 our largest operating fund, account 9. And our
18 two major revenue sources in that fund are license
19 sales and boat registration and titling fees. The
20 total -- this slide shows numbers of licenses sold
21 in total. And this includes stamps, permits, and
22 licenses. The total number of licenses sold as of
23 the end of April show that we're selling roughly
24 the same number of licenses, stamps, and permits
25 as we did last year. It's down just slightly, .3
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1 percent, which is pretty close to even. We are
2 selling more super combos and senior super combos
3 and as we've experienced less straight resident
4 and nonresident licenses. That's nothing new.
5 We've sold a total of 2.7 million
6 licenses, stamps, and permits since the license
7 year began on August the 15th.
8 Now, these next two slides break out
9 hunting and fishing licenses but don't include
10 permits or stamps. So when you look at just how
11 many hunters we've got out there -- really the
12 purpose of this slide, the total numbers of
13 licenses sold is up just a little bit, .9 percent.
14 So it's less than 1 percent. It's holding pretty
15 steady. It had -- these numbers have not changed
16 much since our last -- your last meeting here.
17 But we've sold over a million licenses to hunters
18 this year. And in fishing licenses, we've sold
19 1.3 million fishing licenses, which is up just
20 about 1 percent over last year, again, with
21 combination licenses up and resident and
22 nonresident down. Also it's not included in
23 these -- in the slide, but saltwater stamp sales
24 are down, as well. Let's see. They're down about
25 1-1/2 percent right now. And last year, you'll
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1 remember those sales were down about 8 percent.
2 So ever since we put that $3 increase on there,
3 they have -- the total number of saltwater stamps
4 has decreased, although, of course, the revenue is
5 way up from that source.
6 Okay. In revenue from hunting and
7 fishing licenses, at the beginning of the year, we
8 estimated almost $65 million from this source,
9 $64.8 million in commercial and recreational
10 license sales. That's what our budget is based
11 on. And as of the end of April, we collected 77
12 percent of that estimate. That's what's in the
13 bank, about $50 million at April 30th. And so at
14 this time, it looks like we'll be close to our
15 revenue estimate by year end. So there aren't any
16 real concerns about being over or under much in
17 this category. And boat registrations -- boat
18 registration and titling, we -- the majority of
19 our revenue comes from registrations of boats.
20 And I just wanted to show you how many boats we
21 have registered. These are in the thousands.
22 Over this last eight-year period, nine-year
23 period, we've ranged from about 600,000 boats to
24 630,000 boats. So there's not much of a swing
25 there in number registered. And as of April the
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1 30th, we had about 621,000 boats registered. And
2 I know May has been a real busy month. Our
3 biggest months for boat registrations are May
4 through August. And so they're coming in pretty
5 steady.
6 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Are they
7 up or down from last year?
8 MS. WHITTENTON: Well, right now
9 we're up about -- let's see. It was about 1
10 percent. Let me see. About 2 percent overall,
11 from the same period last year. Now, this slide
12 breaks out the revenue, shows that we estimated
13 $14.8 million, almost $15 million from this
14 source. And as of April the 30th, we collected
15 about half of that. And I checked this this
16 morning, and as of yesterday we collected about 62
17 percent of that. So because there's so much
18 activity in May, I thought I'd just look and see.
19 And that looks like it's coming in about what we
20 expected.
21 One thing to note here is that
22 registrations are up, but titling is down because
23 there are less sales of boats going on now than
24 there were this time last year, which I think
25 makes sense in the slow economy. In fact, we also
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1 get some revenue from the sales tax on boats. We
2 only get 5 percent of the total amount; and the
3 other 95 percent gets goes to the Comptroller's
4 office. And those numbers are down, about 14
5 percent. But, again, the majority of our boat
6 revenue comes from registrations. And since
7 that's -- doesn't seem to be impacted much by a
8 slow economy, we are -- we're not too worried
9 about revenue from that source.
10 Okay. Now, in park revenue, most of
11 our park revenue, this is our second largest fund
12 for operating fund. And our largest source of
13 revenue is from entrance and use fees from state
14 parks. We estimated 27 and a half million dollars
15 for this year. And as of the end of April we
16 collected over half of that, 56 percent, or about
17 $15 million. Park revenue has continued to be
18 strong this year. Even, it looks like May looks
19 like it's been a good month also. So if the
20 weather holds out, we should meet our revenue
21 estimate. We were up about 9 percent over last
22 year as of the end of April. So, of course, our
23 big months, again, in this revenue source are in
24 the late spring and summer. So we'll be watching
25 that.
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1 I just wanted to turn over to a
2 discussion on operating budgets. The current year
3 operating budget, we're spending at the expected
4 rate. With two-thirds of the fiscal year
5 complete, we've spent or encumbered 65 percent of
6 the budget. So this has been tracking
7 consistently through the year. The bottom line
8 here is that everything looks fine for the current
9 year's spending. As you know, we're in the
10 process of developing the '03 operating budget,
11 which we discussed briefly a couple of weeks ago.
12 Some items that we're taking into consideration
13 include, as Bob mentioned, the cost of
14 implementing some of the suggestions from the
15 Business Practices Improvement Plan, trying to
16 find a way to fund those. We hope to continue to
17 fund the minor repair program in parks. We're
18 also going to have to set aside some money for the
19 increase in the WorldCom contract cost. And we
20 also plan to include another game warden academy
21 in the '03 budget. Those cadet positions have
22 been posted -- or will be posted next week. So
23 we're hoping to set aside some money for that.
24 In the early stages of putting the
25 budget together, we've reviewed the appropriation
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1 authority and the estimated funds available. And
2 the bottom line is that we're pretty close to the
3 amount we had budgeted in the current year. But
4 we don't have -- we won't have any contingency
5 funds available, and we expect by the end of
6 fiscal year '03, to have pretty well depleted the
7 funds in the state park account.
8 This summer, we're also putting
9 together our appropriation request for the next
10 biennium. We just got the instructions recently
11 on how the Legislative Budget Board and the
12 Governor's Office wanted us to put that together,
13 how they want it submitted this time. A new
14 change this go around is that they want it
15 submitted in two parts. The first part is what
16 they call the base reconciliation. That's due
17 next month, June the 28th, which is just a
18 calculation of what our current biennium spending
19 is expected to be. That's what they consider our
20 base. And then anything over and above the base
21 that you want to request is called an exceptional
22 item. And that would be due in the August
23 submission of the entire document.
24 After we submit that, we'll begin
25 having budget hearings with the staff at the
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1 Legislative Budget Board and Governor's Office.
2 Expect that in September or October. And then the
3 LBB will recommend -- LBB and the Governor's
4 Office will make their recommendations to the
5 Legislature on what they would like to see our
6 funding -- our appropriations at for the '04-'05
7 biennium.
8 We've talked about some items that
9 we might consider requesting as exceptional items.
10 These are just some of the items that have been
11 discussed so far, and that is asking for general
12 revenue to cover the pay raise from fiscal year
13 '03. You remember we reduced our operating
14 budgets internally in order to make up for the pay
15 raise that didn't come with any extra funds.
16 Also, it looks like we're going to need more
17 general revenue for parks, since we will have
18 spent down those funds in the park account. We've
19 also talked about the possibility of asking for
20 more game wardens in the field. Those are just a
21 few things that have been mentioned so far. And,
22 of course, we haven't gotten feedback from you-all
23 about what you -- what all you'd like us to
24 include. That may be something we could discuss
25 at a budget workshop or at any time that you want
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1 to let us know your feelings on what kind of a
2 request you'd like us to submit.
3 And that's all I had for financial
4 update. And I'd be happy to take any questions.
5 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Suzy, with
6 respect to the pay raise for this year, the status
7 of the second part of it is -- has been changed or
8 affected by the State's financial situation.
9 Could you tell us about that?
10 MS. WHITTENTON: Right. During the
11 last legislative session, the Legislature passed
12 two pay raises, one for fiscal year '02 and
13 another one for '03. Both were contingent upon
14 the Comptroller being able to certify the funds
15 were available. She did certify the funds were
16 available for the fiscal year '02 pay raise, which
17 we implemented. And then the '03 one was to be
18 another 3 percent or $65 a month, whichever was
19 higher -- or I guess it depended on what pay group
20 you were in. But the Comptroller was unable to
21 certify that funds were available, which is good
22 news/bad news for us because, again, we would not
23 have received extra cash to pay out that pay
24 raise. We would have gotten authority but we
25 would have had to juggle some of our operating
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22
1 budget funds again. So that's bad news for the
2 employees, but it -- in the tight financial
3 position that we're in, it's somewhat -- you know,
4 relieves the -- having to decide where that money
5 would come from, what programs we'd have to pull
6 the money from.
7 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
8 questions or comments for Suzy?
9 COMMISSIONER RISING: Suzy, the
10 budgets that you're planning will have an
11 exceptional amount prepared (inaudible). Right?
12 We're going to ask for more for -- but that's an
13 exceptional --
14 MS. WHITTENTON: Yeah. That's one
15 of the things that's been offered as a suggestion.
16 I don't think any final decisions have been made.
17 But since we didn't get cash to fund those pay
18 raises, we -- that's one possibility, is to go ask
19 for that to be funded by general revenue.
20 COMMISSIONER RISING: And how does
21 that work? We're one pay raise behind also.
22 Right?
23 MS. WHITTENTON: Right. That's what
24 we're talking about, is funding the one behind
25 that we had to --
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1 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: We managed to
2 fund it, but we're trying to get reimbursed, in
3 effect, for the -- because we had to take it from
4 other sources, other places.
5 MR. COOK: We took it out of
6 operating in order to fund that pay raise.
7 COMMISSIONER RISING: That's the
8 second one also, right?
9 MS. WHITTENTON: The second one,
10 since the Comptroller's Office -- the Comptroller
11 was not able to certify funds, the second one
12 won't happen.
13 MR. COOK: Like Suzy says, I think
14 it's important that as we go through probably the
15 next 30 to 45 days, we pretty well need to have
16 your direction as to our legislative agenda items
17 because they will directly certainly --
18 potentially would impact our financial situation
19 and what we go to the Legislature and request and
20 our priority that we have those in, the amounts.
21 And we have some, you know, pretty solid
22 information on that for you. And recognizing that
23 it is a tight budget year for the entire State, I
24 think, it's important. It's our responsibility to
25 know that that's a fact and know that it will be a
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1 difficult decision to the Legislature. But report
2 to them what we believe our serious needs are.
3 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: With respect
4 to that, I think it would be appropriate to say at
5 this time that in consultation with the chairman
6 and executive director, we've set a workshop for
7 June the 20th at 9:00 a.m. here in Austin to work
8 on the budget and come up with these
9 recommendations, if that will fit everybody's
10 schedule. That's about the only time we could do
11 it. So there wasn't enough flexibility to offer
12 any other options.
13 AGENDA ITEM NO. 4 - REVENUE ESTIMATING
14 METHODOLOGY.
15 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. Suzy,
16 we'll keep you at the table and go to item number
17 4. As Mr. Cook mentioned earlier, this is
18 something that was recommended in the report from
19 Mr. Bomer and his staff. And that's the -- that
20 the revenue estimating methodology be made more a
21 public item and something that's discussed in open
22 meetings. And so we'll give you the opportunity,
23 Suzy, to do that.
24 MS. WHITTENTON: Okay. Thank you.
25 I want to just share the methodology that we plan
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25
1 to use in estimating future revenues for the
2 upcoming biennium. And since we are a fee-funded
3 agency, we have to include revenue estimates in
4 our appropriations requests, which we just
5 discussed. That will be due in August.
6 Here are the key components of the
7 methodology. First -- and this is a methodology
8 we've used before and have shared with the
9 Comptroller's Office, with their revenue
10 estimators. And what we do is, we collect
11 historical data for the past five years and
12 analyze that data by Comptroller object code,
13 which is by revenue type within each fund. Then
14 we conduct a trend analysis by calculating
15 historical average change in each revenue type and
16 pulling out unusual occurrences. And, of course,
17 fee changes are taken into consideration.
18 From this analysis, a first cut
19 revenue projection is arrived at. There's no --
20 from the first cut, based on historical trends,
21 there's no allocation or allowance for any future
22 unusual occurrences. We don't take from that and
23 subtract off an amount in case we have a drought
24 or anything else that's unusual. So it's just a
25 straight trend.
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26
1 The process from there is that this
2 first cut revenue estimate will be shared with the
3 division directors for their input and to
4 determine if there are any anticipated future
5 events that would invalidate the use of the trend
6 analysis. If so, those events would be quantified
7 and revenue estimates would be adjusted.
8 We would then review and share our
9 estimate with the Comptroller's revenue estimators
10 and discuss our rationale. Final projections will
11 then be presented to division directors again, and
12 then ultimately the executive director would sign
13 off with his approval.
14 What happens next is that the final
15 revenue estimates are included with our
16 appropriations request, which is sent to the
17 Legislative Budget Board and the Governor's Office
18 as well as the Comptroller's Office. And those
19 numbers are used by the oversight agencies in
20 coming up with their recommended future
21 appropriations.
22 Then the Comptroller's Office
23 publishes a statewide revenue estimate called --
24 we call it the BRE, the Biennial Revenue Estimate,
25 which usually comes out right before the
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27
1 legislative session. These are the official
2 revenue projections and they -- they're used to
3 certify the State's budget. And just -- we work
4 closely with the Comptroller's Office in coming up
5 with our estimate so they're not too far off from
6 what comes out in the BRE. Last biennium, we were
7 within 1 percent of their estimates. And we hope
8 to come close to that again this next time.
9 The accuracy of our revenue
10 estimates are important because, as I've
11 mentioned, the Legislature will grant budget
12 authority based on the Comptroller's revenue
13 estimates. And then our annual operating budgets
14 are driven by a combination of appropriation
15 authority and available cash balances and
16 revenues. So business decisions are largely
17 impacted by how much money we have to spend on our
18 programs. And lastly, credibility with oversight
19 agencies and the Legislature can be impacted if we
20 go over or underestimate those revenues.
21 Here is the time-line for this
22 exercise. We'll begin development of the numbers
23 in June and plan to obtain review and approval
24 internally in July. We'll share those estimates
25 with the oversight agencies in July and August and
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28
1 then submit our official appropriations request in
2 August. And then, of course, as I mentioned
3 before, the hearings will begin with the staff of
4 LBB and the Governor's Office and then the
5 Comptroller's Office will publish their BRE in
6 January, right before the session begins. And
7 then during the session, of course, these numbers
8 are discussed often and much analysis is done with
9 the numbers once they're turned over.
10 I have shared the revenue estimate
11 methodology with the Comptroller's Office and have
12 verbally obtained their approval. In fact, there
13 are -- contacted the Comptroller's Office, is the
14 person I worked with for well over ten years and
15 he agrees that keeping it simple is the best
16 methodology, not factoring in too many what-ifs
17 into it.
18 I do plan on sharing it also with
19 the Legislative Budget Board and Governor's Office
20 and hope to get their approval on the methodology,
21 as well. And I'll be happy to take any questions.
22 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Are there any
23 significant changes in this methodology from what
24 you've used previously?
25 MS. WHITTENTON: In actually coming
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29
1 up with the numbers, there's no real change. The
2 only real change in the process is that we hadn't
3 shared the numbers much with the division
4 directors and obtained their input on any future
5 occurrences that they may anticipate. We've
6 formalized the procedure a little more by sharing
7 with the division directors and getting an actual
8 approval from the executive director that would be
9 more normal than what we had done before. But the
10 actual development of the numbers is pretty much
11 the same as what we did, the last go round, which
12 was the only one I was involved in.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Which Suzy and
14 I discussed this process yesterday, I noticed that
15 one of the things that she pointed out was that
16 she was eliminating any consideration for
17 extraordinary circumstances. And that seems a
18 little unusual to me. So I might ask you to
19 explain to the group as you explained it to me,
20 why that's the process that we're doing.
21 MS. WHITTENTON: I think, before I
22 came here, that the staff did try to make the
23 numbers fairly conservative and -- just in case
24 there were bad years. But the oversight agencies
25 really discourage that. And the thinking is that
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30
1 if for some reason your revenue estimates don't
2 come in and you do have an unusual occurrence that
3 impacts it, then you would either adjust your
4 budget at that time or you would go ask for
5 emergency appropriations.
6 We had been criticized for
7 underestimating revenues in the past. So we
8 really -- in this process, you don't gain much by
9 doing that.
10 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I thought that
11 was an interesting explanation for that.
12 MS. WHITTENTON: It's much different
13 in the private sector.
14 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Reserve
15 our losses.
16 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: That's right.
17 So we just ignore that possibility and deal with
18 it when it happens.
19 MR. COOK: I think it's worthwhile
20 here to note I was in the Commission meeting when
21 Commissioner Dick Heath directed staff, in the
22 early '90s, to prepare their estimates based on
23 conservative numbers, you know, not ridiculously
24 so. But, you know, assume that you may not do as
25 well as we did this last year; prepare for an
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31
1 emergency, if we have a hurricane, to have -- you
2 know, and if we have a million dollar or two
3 million dollar hit in that manner, we'll have some
4 funds to go with.
5 But the fact of the matter is that
6 the oversight agencies, the folks who give us that
7 kind of direction, you know, I mean from their
8 perspective it's, you know, give us your best
9 estimate right on -- right on target. We
10 understand that things happen. But it certainly
11 makes most of us who operate on a budget at home
12 uncomfortable.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: A little
14 nervous.
15 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Seasonal
16 business. That's the problem.
17 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: That's the way
18 to go and that's what we're going to do. Are
19 there any other questions or comments on that?
20 Suzy, thank you.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Excuse me.
22 I have one question. I didn't hear the State
23 Auditor in your list of people you're going to run
24 this by, but that may have been me missing it.
25 Have you run this by them and they have agreed to
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32
1 it? At least they have had no further comments?
2 MS. WHITTENTON: I don't recall
3 actually if we showed them the exact document.
4 But they are in the loop on what our process is.
5 And last biennium, they were included in all of
6 our meetings and we would do that again this go
7 round when we meet with the oversight agencies to
8 talk about what our estimates are. We had several
9 meetings two years ago with the LBB office,
10 Governor's Office, Comptroller's Office, State
11 Auditor's Office and ourselves in a meeting going
12 over what the numbers were by revenue type. And
13 we would certainly include them again.
14 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I just
15 meant specifically the methodology because that
16 was one of the things they kept bringing up.
17 MS. WHITTENTON: And actually the
18 criticism that the State Auditor gave us was not
19 so much about our methodology as it wasn't
20 well-documented.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Right.
22 MS. WHITTENTON: So we will have a
23 documented place where we will keep any updates,
24 any kind of changes to those estimates in the
25 Director of Finance's office and so everything
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33
1 will be in one place, easy to find and the
2 methodology is documented.
3 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Good point.
4 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Just keep
5 them in the loop.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: That was
7 something we talked about a lot last year, so --
8 very good. Any other questions or comments? If
9 not, at this point we'll recess the Finance
10 Committee, reconvene the Conservation Committee
11 for the purpose of recessing it to an Executive
12 Session. And I'd like to announce at this time
13 that pursuant to the Rules of Chapter 51 of the
14 Government Code, referred to as the Open Meetings
15 Law, an executive session will be held at this
16 time for the purpose of consideration of Section
17 551.071 of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding
18 pending litigation and legal advice in Sections
19 5.072 of the Texas Open Meetings Act regarding
20 real estate matters. So we'll stay in recess for
21 the executive session at this time.
22 (RECESS.)
23 AGENDA ITEM NO. 5 - NONPROFIT PARTNERS RESOLUTION.
24 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: We will
25 reconvene the Finance Committee and move on to
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34
1 item number 5, which is a Nonprofit Partners
2 Resolution. It will be presented by Susan Harris
3 and Page Campbell. We had a quorum. What
4 happened? Somebody left.
5 MR. COOK: Bob just walked away.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: I hit the
7 gavel and they walked off. All right. We're
8 back. Let's go.
9 MS. HARRIS: Thank you, Mr.
10 Chairman, members of the Commission. For the
11 record, my name is Susan Harris with the
12 Administrative Resources Division here in Austin.
13 And joining me today is Page Campbell with the
14 Coastal Fisheries Division stationed in Rockport.
15 The item we're bringing before you
16 today is the Nonprofit Partners Resolution. A
17 quick overview of what we're going to be
18 presenting, we're going to be looking at Sunset
19 legislation and the mandates that impact the
20 Department as well as the Commission. And we're
21 going to look at how the project evolved into a
22 Natural Leader's assignment, and then finally,
23 we'll look at the categories that were identified
24 by the project team.
25 Senate Bill 305, also known as the
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35
1 Sunset Bill, authorizes the Department to select
2 and cooperate with nonprofit partners, but it also
3 requires that the Commission approve each
4 nonprofit organization selected to partner with
5 the Department. The Sunset staff report stated
6 that the Department does have beneficial
7 relationships with private, nonprofit foundations,
8 but that additional controls are needed. So they
9 recognize the significance and the importance of
10 the partnerships, but they just wanted to have a
11 few more controls put in place.
12 As part of the Sunset implementation
13 plan, this was selected as a Natural Leader's
14 project. And the project team includes myself and
15 Page, a project mentor, Russell Fishbeck with the
16 State Parks Division, and a project sponsor, Gene
17 McCarty with the Executive Office. Senate Bill
18 305 further defines a nonprofit partner as a
19 nonpolitical legal entity that is incorporated
20 under the laws of this State, has been granted a
21 501(c) tax exemption and works with the Department
22 to further its goals.
23 The project team established three
24 specific categories into which all current
25 nonprofit partners were grouped. And they are the
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36
1 official nonprofit partner, closely related
2 nonprofit partners, and other nonprofit partners.
3 The official nonprofit partner is the Parks and
4 Wildlife Foundation of Texas; and as such, it is
5 the single nonprofit organization designated by
6 the Commission to function as the principal
7 support entity for the Department. The second
8 category, closely related nonprofits. And these
9 are nonprofit by law and their sole purpose is to
10 support Parks and Wildlife, its facilities, the
11 research or activities within the facilities.
12 These are also known as our friends groups or
13 support groups. They are administered by the
14 board of directors and they are independent from
15 control of the Commission.
16 The team identified 69 closely
17 related nonprofit partners that have a signed
18 memorandum of agreement on file here at the
19 Department. And those can be found under
20 Exhibit B in your commission book.
21 The third category, the other
22 nonprofit partners, they're also nonprofit by law,
23 and their mission statement compliments the same
24 mission of Parks and Wildlife. And they provide
25 to us money, goods or services. And these
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37
1 relationships are ongoing. And what the project
2 team found is that the level of partnership can
3 vary from paying travel expenses for employees to
4 attend certain conferences all the way to full
5 conservations projects such as building marshes
6 with Ducks Unlimited or even acquiring property
7 with the help of a nature conservancy. So there's
8 a wide variance. We've currently identified 101
9 that meet the other criteria, and they can be
10 found under Exhibit C in your commission book.
11 And the most significant difference between the
12 closely related and the other is that the closely
13 related, they exist solely to benefit Texas Parks
14 and Wildlife. The other category, those are large
15 nonprofit foundations, organizations that support
16 Parks and Wildlife, as well as many other groups
17 and organizations. And I will be presenting this
18 information tomorrow for your consideration. At
19 this time, we'd be happy to take any questions
20 that you might have.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: You put
22 everything through the sieve of Sunset to see if
23 it qualified for the criteria laid out in Sunset?
24 MS. HARRIS: Correct. We were --
25 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Would they
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38
1 not meet the criteria to fall out?
2 MS. HARRIS: There -- we started --
3 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Did we
4 find any organizations we now can't do business
5 with?
6 MS. HARRIS: No. But when we
7 didn't -- when we said ongoing nature, the thing
8 that we didn't want to capture was like a one-time
9 donation or a one time -- because that list would
10 just be enormous. So we did -- you know, we
11 worked with Sunset staff and our legislative team
12 to develop criteria to kind of funnel those down.
13 But there's nothing that fell off that --
14 MS. CAMPBELL: And we set up the
15 list -- a list. We started out with the interest
16 groups for our Sunset, but then we sent this list
17 through the division, all the divisions and the
18 division directors to have them add to it or take
19 out from it. And so this was a list --
20 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: So if they
21 felt they needed to strike it, they'd strike --
22 MS. CAMPBELL: Right.
23 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: -- it.
24 Was the intent just to catalog it or was it to
25 review it and be sure we had compliance with the
.
39
1 law? What was the intent of Sunset to do it?
2 MS. CAMPBELL: To catalog. I think
3 it was just to catalog, to make a list for the
4 Commission.
5 MS. HARRIS: So that you're aware.
6 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. Will it
7 be an ongoing process to add to that list or not?
8 MS. HARRIS: Yes.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: You set up --
10 established the guidelines for doing that?
11 MS. HARRIS: What we will propose is
12 that it be similar to the donations acceptance
13 policy that's already in place at the commission
14 meetings. You-all receive a list of donations.
15 It's going to be similar to that policy on an
16 as-needed basis. If new nonprofits come on board
17 that we haven't already identified and you haven't
18 already approved, they will go through that
19 process. So it is ongoing, yes.
20 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any further
21 discussion or questions? If there's no objection,
22 this item will be placed on the agenda for action
23 at tomorrow's commission meeting and public
24 hearing and action -- public comment and action.
25 AGENDA ITEM NO. 6 - POINT-OF-SALE UPDATE AND
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40
1 LICENSE LEGIBILITY RULES.
2 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Okay. We'll
3 move on then to the next item on the agenda, which
4 is item number 6, the point-of-sale update and
5 license legibility rules presented by Suzy
6 Whittenton.
7 MS. WHITTENTON: Thank you, Mr.
8 Chairman and Commissioners. With me today is John
9 Wilson who is the project manager on the licensed
10 point-of-sale project. He's been working with
11 this project for a couple of years, although he
12 wasn't planning on being on this project for that
13 long.
14 MR. COOK: John had real dark hair
15 when he started.
16 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Did you
17 know this was a permanent endowment when you took
18 it on?
19 MR. WILSON: I had no clue when I
20 started this.
21 MS. WHITTENTON: We have a few other
22 projects we would like to get him on, but if we
23 can get him past this implementation stage. It
24 looks like he's stuck. Also today, we have Bob
25 Parker with WorldCom here, back in the back.
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41
1 This is a briefing of the
2 implementation of the point-of-sale system. And
3 I'll cover the closeout of the old Transactive
4 system, findings of the PricewaterhouseCoopers'
5 review, status of planning for the new license
6 year, phase III enhancements that are still
7 outstanding, and finally a discussion on proposed
8 license legibility rules.
9 On the old system, the old
10 Transactive system we essentially completed that
11 closeout. The game wardens assisted us in picking
12 up some of the terminals that had not been turned
13 in yet so that we could check them all to see if
14 there were any off-line sales on any of those
15 terminals. That was one of the State Auditor's
16 concerns is that some of the offline sales hadn't
17 made it to the host. There were about less than a
18 hundred out there that we collected. And we had
19 hired some of the Transactive employees to help us
20 look for -- pull out those off-line sales. And we
21 ended up finding a total of $236 that was
22 uncollected that never made it to the host. And
23 so we have billed those agents -- there are 15
24 different agents that owed us that $236. So
25 anyway, that was good news. It gave us a level of
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42
1 comfort that we've collected off of all the
2 offline sales, virtually.
3 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Did you
4 include the State Auditor's Office?
5 MS. WHITTENTON: I don't think we
6 have officially told them that yet, but we will.
7 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Just
8 checking.
9 MS. WHITTENTON: As you'll recall,
10 we contracted with PricewaterhouseCoopers to
11 review the controls in the new WorldCom system
12 early on, to help us -- well, for a couple of
13 reasons, to check the controls and also to
14 establish an ongoing audit procedure so that we
15 can keep current on if the internal audit's in
16 place.
17 The final report was received last
18 week. And there were two major findings in it.
19 One is that they identified gaps in sequence
20 numbers on the licenses. And in looking at those
21 gaps, some of those gaps relate to failed
22 transactions that are recoverable. So in other
23 words, there's enough information available where
24 we can recover the transaction -- the information,
25 get it into the database. And we are able to bill
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43
1 the agents for that.
2 At this point, no transactions have
3 been identified that are not recoverable. So
4 we're working on correcting -- or WorldCom is
5 working on correcting that problem. The other
6 major finding was that some off-line limiters are
7 not functioning as designed. Those are checks in
8 the system that prevent -- for instance, you can't
9 sell more than $1,000 off-line -- you're not
10 supposed to be able to sell more than $1,000
11 off-line at any one time. And they found that
12 there were some cases where you could do that. So
13 we're working with WorldCom to ensure that these
14 issues are addressed quickly.
15 There were a total of 24
16 recommendations in the report. All of them were
17 minor other than these two, but we're following up
18 on all of them. The other recommendations are
19 things like the kinds of reports that we need to
20 get and establishing an audit plan, those sorts of
21 things.
22 We're getting ready for the new
23 license year, and in doing that we've got 1937
24 agents right now that have made at least one sale.
25 That number is about 12 higher than last time,
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44
1 when Jay was here reporting to you. We actually
2 have 2100 -- over 2100 that are enrolled, but only
3 1900 have made a sale.
4 We are working on system stability
5 issues. There are some operational problems
6 primarily with the little hypercom units. A new
7 release is going out to the agents this week.
8 It's been tested here. We're working with
9 WorldCom to ensure that the system is stable well
10 before the license year begins. And no major
11 changes in sales applications will happen before
12 the new year.
13 We also are going to conduct some
14 statewide training to the agents that scheduled in
15 July at eight different locations across the
16 state. We're also going to have law enforcement
17 staff training during the summer and we'll get
18 agent support information on our Website. We are
19 also doing some contingency planning in the
20 unlikely event that something should happen with
21 the system, that we have something to fall back
22 on.
23 Part of the WorldCom contract
24 requires that they escrow their software with a
25 third-party vendor. We're making sure that that
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45
1 software gets to the -- gets escrowed. And then
2 considering other options, if anything should
3 happen, that we can't get the escrowed software up
4 and running, if anything should happen.
5 Phase III of the project will be
6 going on this summer also. It will include
7 enhancements for ease and efficiency of use,
8 including a more streamlined sales process, use of
9 bar codes to read last year's license from. And
10 that would also include some of the other
11 PricewaterhouseCoopers' recommendations.
12 We have an improved format that's
13 been designed for the licenses. We have one copy
14 here to pass around. It will have the
15 white-tailed deer log on the back and some small
16 graphic images on the tags of the animals on that
17 one. There are actually going to be -- those
18 images will be in the lower right-hand corner of
19 each tag. But we'll be focusing on key bugs to be
20 addressed before August 1st. And the final
21 software releases are expected later this year,
22 including Internet sales, but that won't happen
23 until after the license year kicks off.
24 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: What was
25 that about the Internet sales?
.
46
1 MS. WHITTENTON: The final software
2 release that will come out later this year will
3 include Internet sales, but that won't happen
4 until after August 15th.
5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I thought
6 that was -- I was going to ask about it, because I
7 thought that was scheduled to come out this
8 spring.
9 MR. JOHN WILSON: It was,
10 Commissioner. It had been planned for late
11 spring, early summer. Because of the issues of
12 stabilizing the system and making sure that we are
13 in good shape to sell in August, we had to move
14 that back. We put it on the back burner, if you
15 will, with WorldCom to give them time to fix the
16 ongoing production problems and get us ready for
17 all the critical things for the sales process to
18 start in early August.
19 MS. WHITTENTON: That was all I had
20 on the update of the system. But I also wanted to
21 mention that the Sunset Bill requires that we
22 specify legibility standards for the licenses,
23 including paper and print quality and a minimum
24 font size. We've proposed standards that specify
25 that, for example, the paper be durable, water
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47
1 resistant, waterproof, tear resistant, and printed
2 in an indelible print and that the font size be
3 reasonable and no less than six points, which is
4 what's on the license right now, and a color that
5 contrasts the background. What we would like to
6 do is propose -- publish some proposed changes in
7 the Texas Register and bring to you in August a
8 recommended rule for adoption.
9 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: John is able
10 to read it without his glasses, so it must beat
11 the test, huh?
12 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: I can read it.
13 Actually I'm looking at the little animals.
14 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: We've got
15 questions. Are you through with --
16 MS. WHITTENTON: That's all we have.
17 We're happy to take questions.
18 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Is the
19 software in escrow somewhere?
20 MS. WHITTENTON: Not yet.
21 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: And why
22 not?
23 MR. JOHN WILSON: Because the system
24 is being built, the escrow agreement requires that
25 every time a new release comes out, that they
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48
1 would have to put it into the escrow company.
2 That has just not been done by WorldCom. We're
3 supposed to have a report tomorrow as to why --
4 where they are in the process. And we just have
5 not gotten them to do that yet. The -- you
6 know --
7 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Why don't
8 we insist?
9 MR. JOHN WILSON: We are. At this
10 point, we are. And because we now have a system
11 that we believe is viable for continuation --
12 earlier the system was, you know, in pieces and it
13 wasn't put into a package, really, that we could
14 take and implement ourselves. And that's part of
15 the process that WorldCom is doing now, is to
16 packaging that up so that when it goes into
17 escrow, it will be a viable option for us. And we
18 are insisting. And that is a subject of
19 discussions on calls that Mr. Cook gets on weekly
20 with the WorldCom senior management, to take that
21 up.
22 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: John?
23 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: The
24 third-party -- escrowed with the third-party
25 vendor, give me an example of a third-party
.
49
1 vendor. Somebody in the same business?
2 MR. JOHN WILSON: It's -- I'm sorry,
3 Suzy.
4 MS. WHITTENTON: Go ahead.
5 MR. JOHN WILSON: The name of the
6 company is Fort Knox Escrow Services,
7 Incorporated. They are in the business of
8 escrowing large software systems for many vendors.
9 And they are independent. There's a separate
10 agreement with them that gives us the right, under
11 our contract under certain conditions, of default,
12 you know, other conditions that we have access to
13 the software independent of WorldCom's
14 involvement. Obviously they could sue us to keep
15 it in place. But we -- you know, if they go
16 bankrupt or if they're in default of the contract,
17 we have access to the software.
18 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: I've
19 always thought that Internet -- having the
20 Internet capability really helped us broaden out
21 market more broad. I hate to miss the whole
22 season, which it sounds like you're doing. If
23 there's any way to speed it up, I hope that we
24 could do that to get out there just because I
25 think it could open up a lot of avenues.
.
50
1 MR. JOHN WILSON: We understand and
2 we're sensitive to that also. Our plan right now
3 is last week we finished with WorldCom just
4 identifying all the pieces that need to be fixed
5 for this August delivery. We're working on an
6 agreement with them and identifying what resources
7 it would take to do that. And our next step is to
8 look at the Internet.
9 We have a couple of things we have
10 to do with state government and the Department of
11 Information Resources and the Texas On-line
12 Authority. We've gotten approval to go ahead with
13 some of our activities for collecting money, but
14 we have not -- we've not gone through the process
15 with them of setting up the linkage between our
16 sales and the collection of revenues through the
17 Texas On-line Authority. They have, under
18 legislation that was passed last session, they
19 have sort of first right of refusal on doing that.
20 And we have to go through an exception process,
21 which we're well underway with, but it would be
22 another sort of step that we have to take to get
23 this done.
24 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: What kind of a
25 system do we have that will ensure that the
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51
1 vendors will be coming to us either on a daily or
2 a quarterly basis or a weekly basis to where if,
3 for example, if academy were to send a hundred
4 dollars worth of licenses today, would we have a
5 comparable record at that the end of the day that
6 would advise us of that so if the funds had not
7 come in there would be a cross-check or something?
8 MS. WHITTENTON: Yes. We get
9 information through the system of how much each
10 agent has sold. And then what we do is, we sweep
11 those funds from their bank accounts once a week.
12 And there's a reconciliation process that goes on
13 to make sure that we're capturing all the sales.
14 We're also going to be hiring an
15 auditor who will audit the WorldCom system.
16 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: Would we have
17 the ability at any given point, let's say, in a
18 day or every second day, to access the records of
19 academy and say, yesterday you sold a thousand
20 dollars or whatever?
21 MR. JOHN WILSON: Yes, sir. We
22 actually have a copy of the database and all sales
23 records here in-house. And it's updated every day
24 for the prior -- for that current day's business.
25 So this morning we got -- when we came in, we had
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52
1 all sales records for everything up to yesterday
2 at midnight.
3 So we have access to that. We have
4 reporting capabilities that we can get any agent
5 and all of their sales at any point in time within
6 our license revenue section.
7 So the only real information that we
8 don't have is, Suzy was talking a little bit about
9 off-line sales. In the instances where the
10 machine might go off-line -- and by the way, we're
11 up, you know, more than 99 percent of the time --
12 there may be some sales that are in the point of
13 sale device that have not been transferred to the
14 back-end computer, the host database. And those
15 sales we wouldn't know about until they actually
16 came back on-line to load those up when the
17 machines -- when the servers came back up. So --
18 and there's our limiters on that, so the thousand
19 dollar limit that Suzy talked about to help
20 minimize our risk in terms of having sales out
21 there that we don't know about instantaneously.
22 But if you make a sale right now, in two minutes
23 we can get access to that sale on the system.
24 COMMISSIONER RAMOS: We didn't used
25 to have that on the old system?
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53
1 MR. JOHN WILSON: We had it in a
2 much more limited way. Yes, sir.
3 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
4 questions?
5 MR. COOK: I want to expand a little
6 bit for the Commission because I'm concerned that
7 this is something you may hear about; and if so,
8 it will be in a rush fashion. Suzy mentioned
9 contingency planning. Obviously the most obvious
10 contingency plan is the software system being
11 escrowed at port docks.
12 Secondarily, I've asked staff to
13 look at several other options that we might go to
14 in case, you know, the system just goes down,
15 something goes wrong at WorldCom, whatever the
16 case may be. And with all due knowledge and
17 respect of Mr. Parker, who is here, we've talked
18 about these kinds of issues. We're looking at,
19 for instance, what I will just call an emergency
20 backup paper system. I think that is, you know,
21 something that probably, given that this is our
22 sixth or seventh year in an automatic licensing
23 system, that's probably something that we should
24 have had all along. We can stock pile a year's
25 supply of paper licenses, very simplified, with
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54
1 blanks in all the right spots that would have to
2 be filled out, where we could continue to
3 function, continue to sell licenses, continue to
4 permit people to do the various things that this
5 system does, by hand, manually, ink and paper.
6 And I'm looking at what that backup
7 system there cost us. We don't have that
8 information yet. If we had to go that way, it
9 would require some very, very quick action. We
10 would have to change some of our rules in order to
11 implement a system like that, and that would take
12 commission action. So I just wanted you to be
13 aware that that's the case. And obviously we have
14 some concerns. But in visiting with the people at
15 WorldCom that we work with -- when I can, I'm on
16 the phone with Mr. Edgerton and Nancy Collins and
17 people that head up this government group, and,
18 you know, they have assured us that they're here
19 for the duration, we're going to get our system
20 fully operational, running smooth and be with us
21 for the next four years. And that's exactly what
22 we all have as our goal and our mission. But
23 there's always that possibility that I think, as
24 conservative as I am, that we need to be prepared
25 for.
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55
1 So we're looking at those costs and
2 I'll be telling you more about that as the months
3 go by.
4 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any other
5 questions? If not, we've got one portion of this
6 item that needs further action. And if there's no
7 questions or discussions or without objection, I'd
8 authorize the staff to publish the item regarding
9 legibility in the Texas Register for the required
10 public comment period. Hearing none? So done.
11 AGENDA ITEM NO. 7 - TPWD FACILITY TRANSFER -
12 PORT LAVACA.
13 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: The last item
14 is number 7, Parks and Wildlife facility transfer,
15 Port Lavaca, Walt Dabney.
16 MR. DABNEY: Chairman,
17 Commissioners, I'm Walt Dabney, State Park
18 Director. I'm here to talk to you today about the
19 potential transfer of the Port Lavaca State
20 Fishing Pier. We -- it's a ten-acre site.
21 We've had it since 1963, after Hurricane Carla
22 blew down the causeway -- or wrecked the causeway
23 in 1961 for Highway 35. We converted the site to
24 a 3200-foot fishing pier. Actually if I back up
25 one, that's a pre -- the fishing pier is the
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56
1 facility to the right side of the main causeway
2 going over there, that's before 1999. It was
3 struck by lightning and 1200 feet of the end of it
4 burned off. We -- you authorized us --
5 COMMISSIONER MONTGOMERY: Kind of
6 unlucky.
7 MR. DABNEY: Yeah. It made --
8 couldn't get out to quite as deep a water.
9 You gave us the opportunity in -- a
10 year or so ago to look at using transfer money
11 from 2108, do an engineering assessment as to what
12 we ought to do on this with the notion of possibly
13 transferring it to the City of Port Lavaca if we
14 fixed it up. Port Lavaca had been operating this
15 site as a city fishing pier.
16 The engineering assessment we got
17 back told us it would cost us about $320,000 to
18 tear it down and as much as $6 million to fix it
19 up into a first-rate fishing pier, somewhere
20 between 3 and 6 million. That did not seem to be
21 in the interest of this Department. And so we
22 looked at the $320,000 proposal.
23 In talking to the City of Port
24 Lavaca, they are making a request of us that we
25 give them the money that we would have used to
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57
1 tear it down, the $320,000, and they will find
2 additional monies to fix the pier back up into a
3 serviceable fishing pier. We think that's a good
4 deal and we are recommending to the Commission
5 tomorrow that we do, in fact, effect a transfer of
6 this to the City of Port Lavaca.
7 COMMISSIONER ANGELO: Any questions,
8 comments, discussions? Hearing none, I'll place
9 this item on the Thursday commission meeting
10 agenda for public comment and action.
11 Before adjourning the committee, I
12 wanted to go back and mention on the item number
13 5, the presentation from Susan and Page, that they
14 mentioned briefly, but I think it's worthy of a
15 little further comment, they're part of the
16 Department's Natural Leaders program, which I
17 think is an excellent program. And I neglected to
18 thank them for a job well done and to emphasize
19 the fact that they are part of that program.
20 Thank you-all.
21 No further business to come before
22 the Committee, the Finance Committee is adjourned.
23 Madam Chairman, back to you.
24 *-*-*-*-*
25 (MEETING ADJOURNED.)
.
58
1 REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
2 STATE OF TEXAS )
3 COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
4 I, MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, a Certified
5 Court Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do
6 hereby certify that the above and foregoing 57
7 pages constitute a full, true and correct
8 transcript of the minutes of the Texas Parks &
9 Wildlife Commission on MAY 29, 2002, in the
10 commission hearing room of the Texas Parks &
11 Wildlife Headquarters Complex, Austin, Travis
12 County, Texas.
13 I FURTHER CERTIFY that a stenographic
14 record was made by me a the time of the public
15 meeting and said stenographic notes were
16 thereafter reduced to computerized transcription
17 under my supervision and control.
18 WITNESS MY HAND this the 5th day of
19 August, 2002.
20
21
MELODY RENEE DeYOUNG, RPR, CSR NO. 3226
22 Expiration Date: 12-31-02
3101 Bee Caves Road
23 Centre II, Suite 220
Austin, Texas 78746
24 (512) 328-5557
25
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