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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Budget Workshop
Monday, August 16, 2004
8:00 a.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H A."BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
DAVE NICHOLSON, Commissioner Pct. 4
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On Monday, August 16, 2004, at 8:00 a.m., a budget
workshop meeting of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was
held in the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse,
Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in
open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let me call to order
at 8 a.m. The item on the agenda this morning is review and
discuss the Fiscal Year 2004-2005 budget. I've provided the
members of the Court some amount of materials. I apologize
for the Court not having all of the draft information it
needs, but at this point we don't have the personnel costs.
Far as I know, the Auditor -- have you received those,
Mr. Tomlinson?
MR. TOMLINSON: No.
JUDGE TINLEY: The personnel costs from
the -- from the personnel schedule that I requested has not
yet come into play, so we need the balance of that
information to add to what I furnished to the Auditor before
he can put out the initial draft of -- of the beginning
cost.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, where does that
information come from? The Treasurer's office?
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JUDGE TINLEY: Treasurer's office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Why do we not have it?
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I -- I suspect you'll
need to ask the Treasurer. I requested several weeks ago
that she begin working on that, 'cause we were going to need
the position schedule that incorporates the -- the personnel
costs as mandated by the policy that the Court passed, as
I'm sure you recall, dealing with longevity increases and
increases because of education. In doing my budget
discussions with the various elected officials and
department heads, I have indicated that -- to those persons
that -- that the draft which I will submit to the Court will
not include anything other than those personnel costs,
because if there are extraordinary matters, such as merit
raises, additional employees, reworking job descriptions to
increase salary costs, COLA's, all of those major personnel
decisions, that -- that those will be a matter for the
entire Court to make the decision on, as -- as will it be
for the capital outlay items. It's basically the same
admonishment that I gave them in -- in the past year; that
those items, I think, are a matter that the Court needs to
make the decision on. Now, I have furnished you a schedule
of the various capital outlay items that have been requested
by the various departments and elected officials so that
you've got those before you of what they are, the costs
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involved, so that we can begin to be looking at those. But
insofar as having an actual bottom-line number, without the
position schedule and the costs that are related to that,
you don't have that before you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We do not, Judge, and
JUDGE TINLEY: As do I.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I think that -- I
think that we should notify the Treasurer's office and --
and tell them we want those numbers this week, and give them
a date, a target for them to get that out. I would say
tomorrow, but y'all are much nicer than I am. But I think
at least this week.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm not nice at all
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're not, are you?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm in a quite irritable
mood this morning, and I really don't see any point to
meeting today. Without those numbers, and without the
entire budget to look at, this is pointless.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How can we make a
decision on any department if we don't have the full
picture? I'm not yelling at the Judge. You know, he's --
I'll yell at him, and he can yell down there if he wants.
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But, I mean, I need everything -- as late as we are, I don't
want to go through these -- I'm not going to go through Road
and Bridge twice. You know, as late as we are in the budget
process, we need these numbers, and I'd just as soon recess
till tomorrow. I really don't see any point in going
through any of this stuff today.
JUDGE TINLEY: I fully understand what you're
saying, Commissioner. I -- I had hoped to have those. Of
course, they need to go to the Auditor so that he can plug
them in with the draft numbers which I gave him week before
last, I guess it was.
in the system.
MR. TOMLINSON: Well, they're -- I put those
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, you've got my numbers
plugged in, but until you get the position schedule numbers,
you can't run it out.
MR. TOMLINSON: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, that's where we are.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Before we jump off
the deep end, can we have our administrative assistant
contact the Treasurer's office to see if those are available
and can be brought up?
(Ms. Mitchell left the courtroom.)
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Do we know what the
inflation factor is that we're going to use, or COLA, in
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determining --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know what I read
yesterday in one of the metropolitan dailies. It's running
about 2.8 nationwide, fueled by fuel costs, essentially.
About 2.4 to 2.8.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'm also
disappointed that we don't have some good numbers to work
with. I wish -- I hope there's something productive we can
do. I'm getting -- as I was last year, I'm getting a little
nervous about the deadline looming, and lots of unanswered
questions.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. But, at the
same time, until we get a full budget, how can we start
cutting or making a decision on what we can and can't do,
when we don't know the final numbers? I mean, we just can't
do it. I mean, how can I make a decision on a lot of this
stuff?
(Ms. Mitchell returned to the courtroom.)
MS. MITCHELL: Cindy or Barbara, neither one
are here.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: County Treasurer
moved to a different county 300 miles away.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Not Atascosa.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They were reduced in
salary, I believe.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you guys want to watch a
little movie?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Not particularly.
JUDGE TINLEY: You're just grumpy all the way
around this morning, huh?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: No popcorn?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I just don't -- I mean --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You cannot make a
decision without the information.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I need --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can sit here and
visit if y'all want to.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- need time to go
through it. I mean, you can't just receive it and expect to
go over, you know, 100 pages of documents and make an
intelligent decision on it. So, you know --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Are there budget
features that are not -- that don't have payroll-related
numbers in them that we can work on?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, there are a number of
them. But those are going to be, I would think, very
dependent upon total budgetary impact, such as
County-sponsored, joint City/County projects, things of that
nature, and I think those probably, to as much a degree, and
maybe a larger degree, are more dependent upon the overall
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budget impact. That's my sense of it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: That's a good point.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Have we received the
JUDGE TINLEY: I've not received any formal
request from the City, no. I have -- I have plugged in some
numbers based upon some input that you gentlemen have given
me, and some other input that I have put in there based upon
the gleaning of some information relative, for example, to
the airport, the operational costs out there. The -- I did
some research in some of the documentation provided to me
over the past couple of months on the operations out there,
so I was able to do that. But insofar as receiving specific
requests from the City on those items, we haven't.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Have we requested them to
give us anything? I mean, last -- last thing I heard from
the City was that they canceled our joint meeting.
JUDGE TINLEY: I had written a letter to them
at about the same time -- I think our letters probably
crossed -- asking about their position on some of those
matters, and asked that they provide us with the information
as soon as possible in advance, so that we might be able to
consider those. That's the general tenor of my letter. I
don't know; it's been a while since I sent it, but I believe
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, I -- on that topic,
I'd recommend that another letter go to the City today, and
probably hand-delivered to them, requesting all of it
immediately. I mean, just -- you know, again, how can -- I
mean, that impacts, you know, the total -- three, four,
$500,000 in our budget?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Close to half a
million.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Over half a million
dollars, and --
JUDGE TINLEY: More than that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, probably $700,000.
I think that we need to get those numbers as well. And I
think we should also -- one thing that -- well, hard for us
to do it without the whole picture, but animal -- Animal
Control? Animal Control, we need to get those numbers to
the City as well.
JUDGE TINLEY: Far as I know, those numbers
have been furnished to the City. Mr. Allen, the manager out
there, worked up some numbers a pretty good while back. And
I think you saw them, didn't you, Commissioner Nicholson?
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I think he provided
the City -- his counterpart in the City.
JUDGE TINLEY: Need to check on that to make
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sure that he has.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How about the jail
numbers? Per-diem rates, are they going to change?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I'm not anticipating any
change, no, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: I guess I'm back to my earlier
question. Since we've got the theater set up, do you want
to watch the movie?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll watch a movie.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. Who's it star?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: What's purpose of the
movie?
JUDGE TINLEY: The Sheriff said he had a
little presentation for us, and I thought as long as we were
here and as long as he was set up, we can go ahead and put
that behind us.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Goes along more the
lines of personnel matters, Jonathan, what we do out there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Sure.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The one request that I
would like to make, if I may, of the Court, is the Judge and
I did sit down and go over the figures I had submitted as
far as budgetary stuff. Personnel and that can't be
answered, but some of the other issues and other budget line
items, especially since I do -- did do four budgets this
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year, three budgets on those different line items, I haven't
seen any kind of numbers yet on what's going to be
recommended to the Court, to where we know if we're going to
have, you know, to try and adjust some things or where I
have to come from with the Court. And I'd like to see some
of those numbers that were worked up prior to -- you
understand?
JUDGE TINLEY: Not sure that I do, but are
you talking about just the -- the non-personnel and capital
outlay items that are in your budget?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, the capital outlay
I understand, you know, has to be a last-minute deal too,
but when you get into things such as, you know,
investigation expense, postage, office supplies, all those
different types of line items that don't deal with personnel
so much, I know I had my lines filled out on what I felt the
department needed this coming year, and I know you and I
went back over them and looked at them, but I don't know
where your figures are going to be on that. I gave you
mine, but I didn't get any of yours, to where, when we come
to court over a lot of those issues, that may be a moot
point; that we don't have to prepare and go through a lot of
this other stuff. It may be agreed upon by the whole Court.
JUDGE TINLEY: You -- I suspect a lot of them
are, Sheriff. I don't think there was a lot of
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modifications. I'm just thinking off the top of my head,
but that, of course, is the whole purpose of my meeting
variances from what the historical uses and expenditures
have been, try and find out what justifications there are.
If some of them are down, where they're down, and if that
was an anomaly or whether they're going to remain down. So,
that's the whole purpose of my meeting.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I agree, and we had
a very good meeting. The problem is, coming out of that
meeting, I have no idea where you stood. Okay? And that --
that was -- you knew exactly where I stood --
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- as a department head,
but I had no idea, you know, where you were going to be.
And I know last year I felt the same way when it came to
court. I think there was about a $200,000 difference, which
caused me some serious problems on things that we couldn't
go to, and I was just hoping this year maybe we could kind
of come to an agreement out of our meeting where we both
knew where we stood on those.
JUDGE TINLEY: I mean, the numbers I've
submitted to the Auditor that are non-personnel, non-capital
25 ~ outlay-related, of course, those numbers are available, and
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I've got them here. I furnished them to the other members
of the Court. Be happy to furnish them to you.
MR. TOMLINSON: Sheriff, I have them in the
system. I mean, if you want a copy of your budget, I'll
print you one.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Of the proposed next
year's?
MR. TOMLINSON: The reason I didn't print
them was because --
JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah, the draft numbers that I
turned in to him.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's what I would love
to have.
JUDGE TINLEY: Sure.
MR. TOMLINSON: Reason I didn't print them
was just because, what the Judge said, I don't have any
salary numbers, so I didn't print them for this meeting.
But if you want one for your -- for your department, I can
do that.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, thank you. That
would help me to know --
JUDGE TINLEY: Sure.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: -- when we come to
hearings, what I need to prepare for. I guess we'll pull
this out a little bit. This is about a 10-minute video. I
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know Buster and I had talked some in the past about what
does our department do exactly. I know some people look at
the U.C.R. reports for Texas or something, see that in the
U.C.R. crime reporting, it shows us with a total of 438
crimes. Well, what this is, is seven offenses that the
State of Texas picks on U.C.R.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you getting into
my stuff now? Stay out of that.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I got your stuff right
here, Buster.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'll get to mine.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. But what that is,
is -- and, actually, there's more than that. We'll get to
that later. But, in Buster's asking, you know, what exactly
do we do, I wanted to show some of the things that we do.
Couple of y'all have seen one thing that's going on now that
I'm not at liberty to talk about during open meeting. But
some of the other things that we do do, I felt you ought to
see and at least hear what these officers go through,
whether they be jail staff members, and the number of people
it takes to actually operate that and handle these type of
situations, or whether it be a patrol deputy on the street
making a traffic stop. So, the videotape is about 10
minutes. Just shows two different instances we've dealt
with in the jail. And the audio tape is one minute and 11
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seconds, and it just shows how bad things can go for just a
patrol officer assisting another agency on a traffic stop.
Just thought you ought to see these.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Rusty, before I forget,
several times we've discussed in court -- I know you've been
here about the communications system.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How we have holes, I
guess we hear about, in west Kerr county. Are you happy --
I mean, is the system performing the way it was sold to us?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yes, it is. We have
excellent coverage. We have little things going wrong, but
it's a computerized system, but there is a maintenance
contract. They respond to it immediately and get any of the
little problems that we have fixed. It's a four tower
repeater-type system, simulcast, which is very detailed, but
our coverage for law enforcement throughout the county is
better than it's ever been, okay? We do get pretty well
what they said, about 95 percent coverage with hand-held
radios and about 98 percent coverage with the car radios.
Now, you can get out west and get into low areas where
you're not going to get reception no matter what you do. I
think a lot of the question is, the fire departments and --
and places like that, they operate off a different system.
25 ~ What we have offered them is -- we have two
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channels, is the easiest way to -- to say it; two
frequencies. One we use for our primary radio frequency,
which is our Channel 1, which is all our day-to-day stuff.
Everything goes across. The second one that, if the Court
will remember, we had set up back when we did that system,
is an emergency channel. And what that is designed for is,
say there is a major fire somewhere or major incident going
on, and we have given the other agencies permission to go
over to that channel to operate in that instance. We don't
want all their just day-to-day talk on there, 'cause it
comes across and it would interfere with stuff. But even if
we have a pursuit going or something like that, we change
over to that channel, so you get a good, clear channel, and
it gives you the same reception. So, that's what we've
offered to the fire departments and -- and all the different
agencies to be able to use in emergency situations where
they need better coverage. But the Sheriff's Office radio
system now is better than it's ever been in 25 years that
I've seen.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: Rusty, you and I
talked about this Friday, I think it was -- Thursday or
Friday, and last night the KARFA president called me and I
related our conversation to him, saying that this Channel 2
would solve their concerns. And his response is that their
concerns are where the holes are in your system. I don't
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know where it is in the eastern part of the county, but in
the western part of the county it's the North Fork and the
South Fork. Their using Channel 2 won't -- won't get them
the ability to communicate that they need. What they need
is another tower in the western part of the county and the
eastern part. And repeaters on those new towers that put
the repeater -- another repeater -- another channel on
current towers won't -- won't fill in the gaps for them.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, one thing that I
maps and actually see. Because I think --
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: We need a meeting
between your office and KARFA.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: When we did that -- and
that study was done. There's areas out there on those
things that can't -- you're never going to get coverage
unless you got a repeater sitting on top of them, which does
make it very difficult.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: I'll get with you in
the next day or -- today or tomorrow, and we'll try to set
up a meeting with -- with those who are making the request.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Good. I have no problem
with that.
(Deputy began the videotape.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Judge, while he's
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doing that, I am -- with all my diplomacy, I went and called
the Treasurer's office and requested that we get things up
here, and she appeared empty-handed and kind of walked out.
So, I'm -- I can't -- I don't know what to tell you.
(Videotape playing.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: There is some language
in this video that you -- I ask your forgiveness for, but
it's real -- well, you can see, this is a riot that was
going on in an 18-man cellblock where they totally covered
all the windows with paper, tied the door shut, and we had
to go in and remove 18 inmates out of a cellblock. They
flooded part of the cell at one time and were making all
kinds of different demands.
COMMISSIONER NICHOLSON: You don't mistake
those guys for a boy scout troop, do you?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't think so.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This is just one
cellblock. We had about 10 different ones. You can see
where they tied that electric gate to -- with a sheet to
where you couldn't open it.
(Videotape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All this was over --
they wouldn't clean their cell, so we took their TV away for
24 hours. That's what started this.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Who's that?
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's Kerrville, Kerr
County, and Fredericksburg S.O.U. Unit. This is about
11 o'clock at night.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Was this filmed on
one of your surveillance cameras?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This was filmed on a
hand-held video camera. We film any of our
have to document them. They're supposed to
homemade weapons in there and anything else
somebody went in, they were going to try an
(Videotape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Some of
instances. We
have had some
that, if
~ use.
these are Aryan
Brotherhood members; some of them are Mexican Mafia members.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Who's --
(Videotape continues.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that you, Rusty?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I don't like getting
woke up.
(Discussion off the record.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Eighteen very dangerous
inmates, we're not going to put up with anything out of
them. You can't; you'd get somebody hurt. We had everybody
working that night except for one officer in there helping
with that. We had one patrolman on duty for the whole
1,100 square miles. Everybody else was having to deal with
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these guys.
(Videotape continues.)
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Rosa said you have to
take Dramamine to watch this. Uh-oh.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Mean dude. Is that
Seard?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Four-inch steel depth on
the wall, and he's chopping through the cell wall.
(Videotape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Had to back away half
the jail and move it to another area before we could go in
and deal with him.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: He's in a cell by
himself, huh?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You can see he cut
himself; that's blood on the glass that you're looking
through there where he's cut himself with the steel.
(Videotape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We probably need to
shoot him with the Taser, 50,000 watts.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Huh?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's 50,000 watts,
tasing him.
(Videotape continues.)
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's a .37-millimeter
round of those pellets -- gas; it actually comes out and
hits you. Next one's a .37-millimeter round of C.S. gas.
(Videotape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's off the fire
alarm. Okay, turn that off.
(Videotape stopped.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that still him?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's him after we got
him out. What I'm showing you on that is, that took -- each
time you could see the other officers there. It took the
patrolmen, took all the jail staff, took S.O.U. units,
anybody we can get ahold of to come in and help take care of
those situations when you're dealing with that number of
inmates. Even if it's one like this event, we had to
evacuate half that jail, move them all around to other
areas, have guards on those people, because at that time
you're losing your classification; you're putting gang
members of one kind together with gang members of another
kind that probably shouldn't be, so you've got people
actually having to guard all those people. Okay, that was
that one.
You want to play this one? This is the --
this is a one-minute patrolman situation where he's just
25 ~ assisting K.P.D. with a traffic stop. Now, you have to
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listen close, because he does get excited.
(Audio tape started.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Listen how calm the
s. These are professional people.
(Audio tape continues.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What that is, is -- as
you can tell, is our officer's just in the area. Kerrville
P.D.'s going to make a traffic stop. He's there close; he's
going to assist Kerrville P.D. with the traffic stop. As
soon as he got on the radio to tell the dispatcher he's
going to be out with P.D. at the traffic stop, you get shots
fired, and at the end of that, as you well know, one man
died; two police cars shot up pretty bad. The shots that
were fired at our officer went over the top of him and hit a
bystander's car driving down the road. These are the type
of situations that your law enforcement people handle,
whether they're jail or whether it's Kerrville P.D. or us.
But I think we have -- as you can tell, the dispatcher on
duty there stayed very calm, getting the help out there
that's needed. And the reason I show this is rumors during
this budget process -- and not from the Judge, not from
anybody in particular -- is that manpower may be a big
issue; that they think some departments are overloaded with
manpower and have too many and things like that. And what
I'm trying to show is, if anything, in law enforcement, we
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need more manpower and we need better wages for these
That officer -- I know we choose our jobs; we
choose our professions. Court chooses our salaries. That
officer is literally getting shot at, and officers die all
the time across here, and he's doing that for about $30,000
a year. And he's not backing down; he's screaming for help.
He's going to stand there till the fight's over. The
jailers have their duties, as you saw with that. I would
ask that, during the budget process, you look at law
enforcement closely. Look at our manpower and look at what
we have to deal with, and our gateway to San Antonio, the
interstate and everything else that our officers have to
deal with be taken into consideration. Especially when you
figure that the most I have on duty on patrol at a time
right now is four to five. And I have a rule they can't go
below four; we call people in if it goes below four. To
keep that four people on patrol for 1,100 square miles, and
they can be 50 miles apart from each other, is already too
few. That's the show.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any questions for the Sheriff
in connection with his presentation? Thank you, Sheriff.
We appreciate that.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: I have just been handed,
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moments ago, a 2004-2005 position schedule. This obviously
will need to be plugged into the budget draft by the
Auditor. What I'm going to do at this point is ask that our
Administrative Assistant make several copies of this, one
for each member of the Court, one for herself, for myself,
and we'll get this to the Auditor so that he can get it
plugged in. And what's the -- what's the turn-around time
on having these numbers plugged in? Best estimate,
Mr. Tomlinson?
MR. TOMLINSON: Well, we can do it today for
sure. Depending on how many fires there are.
JUDGE TINLEY: Pardon?
MR. TOMLINSON: Depending on how many fires
there are during the day.
JUDGE TINLEY: I see. Brush fires. Brush
fires.
MR. TOMLINSON: Yeah.
MS. NEMEC: Which, by the way, I did have
this morning. Why that is late, I had to go to Office -- to
Walmart and get more ribbon, printer ribbon; I ran out. And
my employee did not deserve to be hung up on this morning by
a commissioner that called her, and I don't appreciate that
at all.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I didn't hang up on
her.
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MS. NEMEC: Yes, you did, Buster. She told
me. I don't think she would lie.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't give a damn
what she told you; I didn't hang up.
MS. NEMEC: Well, she deserves an apology.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We11, go apologize to
her. I didn't hang up on her.
MS. NEMEC: I knew you wouldn't. You're not
man enough to do it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I got to go.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is there anything else that we
can -- that we can do prior to having this information put
together that we're going to need in order to be able to
give consideration?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I really don't think so.
'Cause to me, we, you know, need to get the full budget,
have time to go through it, digest it, and then go over it.
JUDGE TINLEY: We've got a workshop set for
Friday, but time's wasting, is all I can tell you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If Tommy can get this
run -- get the numbers run today, why can't we come back in
in the morning? Tell me why.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mainly 'cause I don't
think I'll probably have time to get back up here,
necessarily, to -- well, I will be up here this evening.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Y'all let me know.
(Commissioner Baldwin left the courtroom.)
JUDGE TINLEY: I've got mental health docket
in the morning, but hopefully that won't last all that --
won't last all morning. Kathy's not here, so I'm not sure
what my calendar is for tomorrow afternoon. You -- are you
pretty well committed for tomorrow, Commissioner Letz?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: No. I mean, I can be
here. Only day I cannot be here is Thursday; I have a
Region J meeting all day. But it's just a matter of -- I
really would like a little bit of time to go through the
whole book, and it takes a little bit of time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Sure, to digest.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Kind of see where it is.
So I think, you know, if Tommy has them ready today, you
know, I can pick it up late today. We can meet, I guess,
tomorrow morning or afternoon.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Let's get started.
We could at least get started.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Will they be ready this
afternoon, you think, Tommy? Or are we talking about
tomorrow, have it ready?
MR. TOMLINSON: Well, I can't absolutely say
it will be ready this afternoon, but we'll -- we'll see.
25 ~ I'll let you know. I'll give you -- leave you a message or
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something. I'd rather --
JUDGE TINLEY: We can recess for a day, but
we can't recess for beyond that, I don't think.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Why don't we --
JUDGE TINLEY: Recess till 8:00 in the
morning, and then we can, if need be, recess again.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 8:30 would be my
preference for tomorrow.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Recess till 8:30. If
it's not ready this evening, roll it from that point.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go from there to tomorrow
afternoon.
MR. TOMLINSON: What about tomorrow
afternoon?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, if we're --
JUDGE TINLEY: The problem is, we need to --
we need to reconvene before 9:00 in the morning.
MR. TOMLINSON: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: And then, at that time, if --
if we see the need to recess till later on in the day, we
can do so. So, it appears that the best course of action
right now is to recess until 8:30 in the morning and see
where we are at that point, and then we go forward from
there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How about posting an
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emergency meeting for Wednesday?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'm in San Antonio.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're in San Antonio all
day? Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: San Antonio and
Austin both.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay. We'll -- tomorrow
morning.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, we'll stand in recess
until 8:30 tomorrow morning, Tuesday, August the 17th, 2004.
Thank you.
(Budget workshop recessed at 8:48 a.m.)
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STATE OF TEXAS
COUNTY OF KERR
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 16th day of August,
2004.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
BY: _____ _ _ ______________ ______
Kathy nik, Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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