Fresh Tidbits from the City Council

The Police Chief and the Fire Chief each presented an overview of their departments accomplishments and needs for the next budget year.  No numbers were presented and that caused some concern among council members.  They directed the chiefs to come back with detailed budget numbers next time and they requested details on each department's budget and personnel growth over the previous five years.  EMS costs were to be split out separately since there were no EMS costs before 2014-15.

The Police Chief indicated a narcotics unit will be staffed and operational by mid summer.

Both departments are to review fees charged (both cash and in-kind) for outside use of the new public safety facility on DB Wood.  They are also to clearly indicate in the budget presentation the amount and source of external funds expected to come to each department.

There was some discussion on whether or not the next two fire stations, one on the west and one on the east, could be built simultaneously since there seems to be an increasing need for a station in the south-east quadrant of the city.  Previous studies show the station on the west side should be built next.

The council voted to increase their pay above the amount recommended by the compensation committee.  Each council member will receive $1150/month and the mayor will be paid $1250/month.

The council also voted to increase the 2014/15 annual budget by $1.482M due to increased operational and capital costs, including the addition of six (6) new positions for the EMS program.

The council did decline to issue a resolution in support of national action on the misuse of antibiotics.

Watch The Other Hand

It has been reported that the assessed value of homes in Georgetown are up 11 percent over last year.  The average Georgetown home is valued at $251,986 in 2015 versus $227,025 last year.

This seems like a great opportunity to hold the city budget increase to no more than inflation plus population growth(5.89% over the last 10 years).  If the State of Texas can meet this metric, why can't Georgetown?  With assessed valuation up 11%, the tax rate can be reduced significantly so that any property owner can expect no more than 5.89% increase in their property tax bill, unless they have made improvements.  Insist that your city representatives look out for you!

Let your council person know that just talking about tax rate is meaningless.  Any discussion has to include assessed valuation and thus total tax paid by the property owner.  The "compact with the voter" with respect to a cap on the tax rate for the proposed road bonds is just empty rhetoric.  It is the total dollars extracted from the property owner that is important to him/her.

Of course your Williamson County and School Board representatives play the same "game" and focus on tax rate instead of total taxes paid to each entity.  Hold them accountable to vote in your best interest when budgets are formulated and approved.

Shields Up, LoneStar Rail Making Another Run at Georgetown

According to the Lone Star Rail District's report on activities in March 2015, an interlocal agreement with Georgetown is in final negotiations. This item has not shown up as an agenda item on either the General Government and Finance Advisory Board (GGAF), or the Georgetown Transportation Advisory Board (GTAB).  Be on the lookout for this interlocal agreement showing up on one or both of these boards agenda.  They are supposed to review and recommend prior to it being submitted to the City Council.

Still no word or reason why Round Rock and Williamson County are not being "courted" to join LoneStar Rail.  If anyone has any insight on this matter, please share.

Open Letter to Georgetown Mayor and City Council

I see that the agenda for Tuesdays City Council meeting contains a proposed resolution in "support of National action on the misuse of antibiotics"  This item has appeared on the agenda previously and was not acted upon, rightly so in my opinion.

I believe the Council should focus on those activities and actions that directly affect the health and safety of Georgetown's citizens and abstain from taking positions on National issues over which the Council has no direct responsibility.  This is an attempt of a special interest group to use the City of Georgetown to influence state and national legislators to pass legislation or regulations favorable to their cause.  This is a misuse of Georgetown's influence to cause legislation to be enacted that is likely not in the best interest of the citizens of Georgetown.

I recommend you take a pass on this resolution, but, if you think resolutions like this are an important component of the Council's duties, I probably have about 1,000 that I'll gladly bring forward ranging from "Audit the Federal Reserve" to "Return all the Federal lands to the states".

Terry Putnam

NO! to a Franchise Ordinance for Non-Emergency Ambulance Transfer Service Without Evidence!

The requirement for any person or business to engage in the non-emergency ambulance transfer service within the City of Georgetown or its ETJ is a mechanism for controlling private enterprise, aggregating additional power to the City, and another method of acquiring funds for the City.  A franchise or license granted by the City is a barrier to entry for persons or businesses to engage in a legitimate business.

A typical ordinance requires that a non-emergency ambulance service provides for "public convenience".  In addition, the burden of proof shall be upon any applicant to show clear, cogent and convincing evidence that the public convenience will be served by granting a non-emergency ambulance transfer service franchise.

Typical requirements are:

1.  Provide liability insurance with the City named as an additional insured.

2.  Establish a performance bond.

3.  Pay a franchise fee to the City - 3% to 5% of revenues.

4.  Inspection of books and records at any reasonable time.

5.  Standards for vehicles, equipment and personnel.

6.  Maintain a 24 hour dispatch service for non-emergency ambulance transfer service.

7.  City may fix and regulate rates for non-emergency ambulance transfer service.

Is this the kind of burden that should be imposed on people and businesses when no evidence has been presented that indicates a significant issue?  As stated in a previous post, the City needs to establish a complaint system so that citizens of Georgetown can submit their complaints along with any documentation to substantiate their grievance.  At the end of a year, the data should be analyzed to see if the City needs to enact an ordinance to assure the public safety and convenience is being met.  Until then, no ordinance establishing a franchise or license for non-emergency ambulance transfer service need be enacted!

Local Control of Land Use at Risk Under Trans Pacific Partnership(TPP)

The US Senate is currently in the process of granting the President fast track or expedited  authority to negotiate a trade agreement (treaty) between 12 counties (United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, and Singapore. Other countries could join later.)

A more in-depth discussion can be found at the following site.  http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2015/04/pending-trade-deals-undermine-zoning-local-land-use-rules.html

A key quote from the article gives some insight.  "A recently leaked draft of the TPP gives investors from member nations the right to sue when a decision by a local government “interferes with distinct, reasonable investment-backed expectations.

Panels of private lawyers chosen by the investors and the federal government will meet to decide the suits. If the investors win, the federal government must reimburse them for the loss of future profits."

If the Federal Government begins to lose to foreign investor groups and are required to pay for loss of future profits, it will only be a matter of time before the Federal Government takes control of all land use decisions.

Homeowners’ ability to control development in their communities is an entitlement that most people in the United States take for granted. But it is just the sort of local decision-making the TPP seeks to curb.

If you are concerned about this potential loss of local control, contact your US Senators and voice your concerns before it is too late.

Tidbits from April 14 City Council Meeting

The City Council evidently held an Executive Session before the regular council meeting as the first order of business was to vote on three resolutions that resulted from the Executive Session.

1.  The council voted to give the interim city manager authority to give notice of termination of agreements between Williamson County and other EMS organizations effective October 1, 2015 for EMS services.

2.  The council voted to give the interim city manager authority to consummate mutual aid agreements for EMS services with Williamson County, AMR(American Medical Response), inc., and Acadian Ambulance Services subject to conditions discussed in Executive Session.

3.  The council voted to increase the annual salary of Jim Briggs, Utility Systems Director to $180,000/year.

In regular session the council voted to increase their own compensation to $800/month for council members and to $1100/month for the mayor.

The acting city manager indicated that regular updates will be provided to the council on the implementation of the independent EMS service.

The acting city manager also reported that Texas Senate Bill 1945 had been reported out of committee on a 6-3 vote.  He expressed great concern as the bill would require that municipal utilities allow for competitive electric producers to provide electricity in municipalities.  The bill is "aimed" at Austin Electric, however, there are concerns it would apply to all municipalities, including Georgetown.  This elicited some discussion with offers to contact Senator Schwertner to voice opposition.

Cap the Budget and the Debt

The city held the first reading of an Ordinance adopting Fiscal and Budgetary Policy to be used in preparation of the 2015/2016 budget.  Unfortunately, there is no mention of a "not to exceed cap" in the policy document, therefore a presentation was made at today's Council meeting calling for a budget cap to be included.  The chart following is a summary of the presentation.

                                                                             4/14/2015

1.      Governor and Lt Governor advocate budget cap of population growth plus inflation

2.      Texas Senate has imposed budget cap of population growth plus inflation

3.      If it is good enough for the State, why is it not good enough for the City?

4.      Population growth plus inflation over the last 10 years = 3.59% + 2.3%= 5.89%

5.      City budget has growth 7.34% over the last 10 years, not including current amendments

6.      Why is this not included in City budget policy?

         
This policy needs to be adopted for the City budget and for the issuance of City debt.

Contact your city council person if you agree and urge them to put a cap of population growth plus inflation on the budget and debt.

ps  The Texas State Senate passed a 2 year budget today that increased less than 5%.

Review of City EMS Decision

As the City Council prepares to implement the independent EMS system for Georgetown, it seems instructive to examine how we arrived at this point in time.

In late July 2014, the Fire Chief made a presentation to the council justifying the expansion of the Fire Department responsibilities to include transport of patients.  It was asserted that this expansion would be cost neutral to the City by 2017 due to the reimbursement.  The plan included two new ambulances to be staffed by city paramedics and that the plan had been coordinated with Williamson County, current provider of EMS to Georgetown.

It appears that Williamson County was not entirely on-board with Georgetown's proposal and at a City Council workshop on November 11, 2014, they presented their concerns and potential solutions to improving EMS capability within Georgetown.

Because of the disconnect between city and county staff on this issue, Council appointed two Council members, Hesser and Fought, to meet with the County Commissioners to develop a workable arrangement between the City and County with respect to EMS.  After several contentious meetings, no agreement was reached.

Suddenly, without advance public notice, at a City Council workshop on March 24, 2015, the Fire Chief presented his proposal to take over the entire responsibility for EMS in Georgetown and the ETJ(Extra Territorial Jurisdiction).  At the City Council meeting on the same day, the Council approved the Fire Chief's proposal to assume all responsibility for EMS in Georgetown and the ETJ.  This of course requires the purchase of two additional ambulances and six additional paramedics and a process for certifying all of the paramedics to the same standards as Williamson County paramedics.

Following is a table describing the City's rationale and some observations.

City Rationale	Observation
Single organization responsible for police, fire and EMS response	No cost or organizational efficiencies identifiable due to single organization that could not be achieved with a unified call system that would dispatch the appropriate team.
City manager responsible for performance in Georgetown	City manager currently responsible for police and fire, WILCO responsible for all EMS including Georgetown
Georgetown can adapt public services, policies and needs to potential unique needs of Georgetown - different from WILCO?	WILCO has much broader EMS resources and could tailor EMS service to any unique needs for Georgetown
WILCO can adapt public safety services to unique needs of the County	This is faulty reasoning as the County does that now
The City can be reimbursed for transport services with their new ambulances	WILCO loses this reimbursement and still has to fund the same number of EMS staff and ambulances as they redeploy

From public comments made by Williamson County representatives, they were completely blind-sided by Georgetown's decision to eliminate the County as EMS provider in Georgetown. Needless to say, it appears that an unnecessary rift has been opened up between our elected City and County representatives.

It should be noted that this decision by Georgetown also has ramifications for the ESDs(Emergency Service Districts) that surround the city, especially ESD #8. The impacts are unknown at this time, but, will become visible in time as the local boards work their agreements and budgets.

The Georgetown citizens and taxpayers need to engage their city council if they are at all concerned about this process. I am sure suggestions for improvement will be readily accepted. Suggestions on how to improve relations with the county and ESDs are also needed.

STOP the Over-reaching of the Georgetown City Government

In an opinion article in the Williamson County Sun, today, April 12, 2015, The Fire Chief "identifies" a problem with the unlicensed non-emergency medical transport of senior citizens and those who reside in assisted living/care facilities.

First of all no data is presented substantiating the existence of a problem. There must be a log somewhere in the city of all the complaints that have lodged over the past year against these unlicensed non-emergency medical transport companies.  Let us see the data!

Secondly, this has the appearance of more "garbage fees" imposed on citizens and legitimate small businesses in our community. We have enough of those already buried in our city ordinances that should be purged!

Before our City Council takes any action to impose licensing and fees, they should establish a complaint recording system, independent of the Fire Department, to collect data for at least a year to determine if a genuine issue exists that requires city action.

If you are a concerned citizen or small business owner, contact your city council person and tell them to STOP the over-reaching!

City "Burns" Through Your Money at April 14 City Council Meeting - Bring Your Hot Dogs and Marshmallows!

The City is wasting no time in spending your tax dollars on the newly established independent Emergency Medical Services for Georgetown.  First on the agenda will be the approval to spend $340,000 for the purchase of 2 additional Dodge 4500-Diesel transitional response vehicles(TRVs), AKA ambulances, from a Dallas based dealer.  Next up, the Council will amend the 2014/2015 budget by increasing it $1,482,000 to pay for the new EMS service(note the $340K is included in the $1482K).  Of course, this also includes $125,000 for the salaries and benefits for 6 new paramedics for the last 3 months of the fiscal year.  These costs will go on forever, escalated by competitiveness and inflation.

The growth in the Fire Department has been "eye watering", even before taking over the entire responsibility for EMS.  In 2005, the FD staff consisted of 59 people, in 2015 the staff has grown to 103.  That is a compound annual growth rate of 5.73% over 10 years.  Most notable is where the staff growth has occurred; 3 people in administration in 2005 and 10 people in administration in 2015.  Looks like administrative "bloat"!

The FD budget has grown at a 10.32% compound annual rate over the past 10 years.  This far exceeds the prudent rate of population growth + inflation(3.59%+2.3%).

One of the justifications for assuming responsibility for EMS in Georgetown was the "rapid population growth".  This canard has been repeated in the various news publications around the area without reservation or fact checking.  It is easily calculable from publicly available sources, including the City, that the population growth rate is 3.59% compounded annually over the last 10 years.  For comparison, Williamson County has grown at a 4.9% annual rate.  Thus, one can observe that the County is growing at a 36% faster rate than Georgetown.  So yes, our city is growing, but, not at an extraordinary rate.

Stayed tuned for spending additional money over the coming years as more TRVs and paramedics are needed to reduce response times, improve deployment efficiency, and improve service.

City Council Candidate Forum

The city election is coming on May 9, 2015 in which there will be two new council persons elected as well a proposition to approve the issuance of $105M in new road bonds.  The last day to register to vote in this election is Thursday, April 9.  Early voting begins Monday, April 27.  Voting locations are available on the Williamson County Elections website.

Only one person filed for the open seat in District 1, Anna Eby.  She will be seated as long as she receives more votes than any write-in candidate.

District 5 has two candidates vying for your vote if you live in District 5.  Ty Gipson and Paul Nadeau are scheduled to participate in a candidate forum this Saturday, 9:30 am at the Independent Bank at 1503 Rivery Blvd.  This forum is hosted by a group of concerned citizens and continues a tradition of establishing candidates positions on issues of concern to the electorate.  Come and find out their qualifications and knowledge of local government and issues.

Georgetown's Switch to 100% Renewable Electric Power

Georgetown made national news last week when it was announced the city signed a 25 year contract with SunEdison to purchase 150 megawatts of capacity produced by a 600,000 panel photo-voltaic array to be constructed in West Texas.  The city had previously signed a 144 megawatt contract with EDF Energy Renewables for wind generated electricity.

Let us first focus on the solar power agreement.  The press reports are very positive for the city and its management, however, several very important questions have yet to be asked or answered with respect to the contract.

1.  Is there an escalation clause that allows the price to the city to be increased?  Under what conditions are price increases allowed?

2.  Are there penalty clauses to be invoked in case the contractor is unable to perform (deliver electricity)?

3.  Is the city aware that SunEdison has not been profitable over the last 5 years?  Their market cap is $6.5B and their Levered Free Cash Flow over the last 12 months is -$1.5B.  They are hemorrhaging money at a tremendous rate!  They have approximately $7.2B in debt.  This is not a company that gives confidence that they can perform up to the terms of the contract!  From an investors point of view, this company would appear to be a highly speculative investment.

4.  Is the city aware that SunEdison plans to transfer the solar plant and contract to a subsidiary company (TerraForm Power) after construction is complete?  What are the implications of that?

5.  Is the city aware that according to Barrons, "more than half of the value created by SunEdison's yieldco (TerraForm Power) comes from tax benefits".  As the editor of the Sun newspaper asked in an editorial last week, "what happens when the subsidies expire"?  The subsidies are set to expire in 2016 unless the Congress renews them.  That may or may not be a good bet!  It has been estimated that the tax credit allows a power generation company to reduce the price from about 8 cents-per-kilowatt-hour to about 5 cents.  How is the city protected in the event the subsidies are not renewed?

6.  Does the city have a backup plan in the event either the solar or wind power generators are unable to deliver the necessary power?

The city needs to share the contracts and their terms with the citizens of Georgetown as well as their backup plan if either company cannot deliver as per their contracts.

Steady, dependable electric power is necessary for the city's continued economic growth.  Companies will want assurance their power needs will be met before they will locate in Georgetown.

Ask your city to answer these important questions.