Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission
Finance Committee
Nov. 2, 2011
Commission Hearing RoomTexas Parks & Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex
4200 Smith School Road
Austin, TX 78744
BE IT REMEMBERED, that heretofore on the 2nd day of November 2011, there came to be heard matters under the regulatory authority of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission in the Commission Hearing Room of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Headquarters Complex, to wit:
APPEARANCES:
THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE COMMISSION:
- Antonio Falcon, M.D., Rio Grande City, Texas, Committee Chair
- Ralph H. Duggins, Fort Worth, Texas
- T. Dan Friedkin, Houston, Texas, Chairman
- Karen J. Hixon, San Antonio, Texas
- Dan Allen Hughes, Jr., Beeville, Texas
- Bill Jones, Austin, Texas
- Margaret Martin, Boerne, Texas
- S. Reed Morian, Houston, Texas
- Dick Scott, Wimberly, Texas
THE TEXAS PARKS AND WILDLIFE DEPARTMENT:
- Carter P. Smith, Executive Director, and other personnel of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department
PROCEEDINGS
1 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Thank you,
2 Mr. Chairman. The first item would be the approval of
3 the minutes for the previous Committee meeting from 24
4 August, 2011. Do I hear a motion from a Commissioner?
5 COMMISSIONER MARTIN: So moved.
6 COMMISSIONER SCOTT: Second.
7 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Scott and Margaret.
8 All those in favor say aye.
9 (A chorus of ayes)
10 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Opposed? All
11 right, I'm going to go ahead and remove Committee Item
12 No. 2 from the agenda and I'm going to ask Mr. Carter
13 Smith now to present Committee Item No. 1 and for him to
14 discuss Committee Item No. 3 and No. 4.
15 MR. SMITH: Right. Thank you,
16 Mr. Chairman, members of the Commission. I'm going to
17 kind of dispense with a full report on Committee Item
18 No. 1 and just two things I want to point out real
19 quickly. I think all of you are aware that built into
20 our base budget is a presumed collection of a million
21 600,000 a year in donations to State Parks and this is
22 presumed to come from people who are making donations
23 when they go to re-register their vehicles.
24 And I just want to compliment Darcy and
25 Linda and Lydia and everybody who's been working on this
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1 with very, very limited funds to try to get the word out
2 so that people will be motivated to donate. Y'all have
3 asked us to be thinking about collateral that we could
4 place in tax assessor/collector's offices and they've
5 done a great job. You'll see these table tents which
6 they've put forward, State Parks need your help more now
7 than ever; so encouraging you to donate $5 or more when
8 you register your vehicles.
9 They've also -- and I think, Commissioner
10 Duggins, this may have even been something that you had
11 proposed; but, you know, basically a placemat here that
12 could put up there where folks are going to register
13 their vehicles just to make people aware of this
14 opportunity. That is a huge issue. Remember, built
15 into our budget is an assumption that we'll come up with
16 a million 600,000 a year. That funds core operational
17 needs of State Parks -- keeping the lights on, taking
18 care of our State Parks, the stewardship, the
19 maintenance. So we need to do everything we can.
20 And I just wanted to let you know how
21 hard our team in marketing has been working on this and
22 come up with a lot of creative capital. So real proud
23 of them for that and appreciate y'alls help in getting
24 the word out.
25 The last thing I'll mention, we've talked
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1 a lot about the importance about how we reach out to the
2 Hispanic demographic and try to work to encourage them
3 to get more involved in our outdoor recreational
4 activities. And so I'm real pleased to show our new
5 State Park Guide that was published in Spanish. And so,
6 you know, we were given that feedback from Spanish
7 speaking families that it would certainly help to have
8 more information that was presented in Spanish. And
9 again, our team has worked hard to do that and so I just
10 wanted to share those updates with you because I know
11 they would both be meaningful on that front.
12 Mr. Chairman, that's the only thing I've
13 got on Item No. 1, unless anybody has any questions for
14 me.
15 COMMISSIONER FALCON: No, sir. Go ahead.
16 MR. SMITH: Okay, all right. I'm going
17 to go to Item No. 3 and in the interest of time, Darcy
18 and her team have been working very, very hard on this
19 issue. In the last session, there was legislation
20 passed that would give the Department more authority to
21 enter into agreements with corporate partners to help
22 license the use of the Parks and Wildlife name and
23 brand, to engage in strategic marketing partnerships in
24 which entities could be, you know, the official partner
25 of Parks and Wildlife with X, Y, Z activity, to set up
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1 opportunities where companies could acquire and sell
2 State Park passes. So there were a set of kind of
3 permissive things that were provided in that
4 legislation.
5 Our team has worked hard to develop a set
6 of rules by which we would evaluate that. And so I'm
7 not going to go in -- in the interest of time, I'm not
8 going to go into a lot of detail on that. But basically
9 what we're asking for is your permission to go ahead and
10 publish the proposed rules for official corporate
11 partners and get those published in the Texas Register
12 and so with y'alls permission, we would like to proceed
13 with that. Good with that?
14 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Sounds all right.
15 MR. SMITH: And certainly if you've got
16 any questions at all about the details on that, please
17 do contact Darcy and Lydia. They can certainly fill you
18 in on that in more detail.
19 Mr. Chairman, the last item that we have
20 on this Committee has to do -- and it's an action item
21 for tomorrow and so we'll get a full presentation on
22 this, but this is basically giving the Executive
23 Director the authority to set fees that an internet
24 service provider could collect for providing boater
25 education on the internet. Right now, it's capped at $3
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1 a student. This legislation allowed us to have the
2 Executive Director to set a fee not to exceed $25.
3 What we heard from all of these internet
4 service providers, that they just can't provide boater
5 education to students at $3 a head; and so this gives
6 them something to be competitive. We need to do
7 everything we can to allow these service providers to
8 recapture kind of their basic costs and have some kind
9 of a profit motive in there for them if they're going to
10 continue with this service and so this is an action item
11 on the agenda tomorrow and I just wanted to give you
12 that quick overview of that. So pretty straight
13 forward.
14 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Okay. So we'll
15 place this item on the committee -- the Thursday
16 Commission meeting agenda for public comment and action.
17 MR. SMITH: That's right. Thank you,
18 Mr. Chairman.
19 COMMISSIONER FALCON: Chairman Friedkin,
20 that completes the business of this Committee.
1 C E R T I F I C A T E
2 STATE OF TEXAS )
3 COUNTY OF TRAVIS )
4 I, Paige S. Watts, Certified Shorthand
5 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, do hereby
6 certify that the above-mentioned matter occurred as
7 hereinbefore set out.
8 I FURTHER CERTIFY THAT the proceedings of such
9 were reported by me or under my supervision, later
10 reduced to typewritten form under my supervision and
11 control and that the foregoing pages are a full, true,
12 and correct transcription of the original notes.
13 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
14 hand and seal this Turn in date _____ day of
15 ________________, 2011.
16
17
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19 __________________________
20 Paige S. Watts, CSR, RPR
CSR No.: 8311
21 Expiration: December 31, 2012
Firm Registration Number: 87
22 1016 La Posada Drive
Suite 294
23 Austin, Texas 78752
Job No. 95402
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