Travis County Commissioners Court
July 12, 2005
Item 18
Now, we do have representatives here from hrmd. 17 we have acted on so 18 is consider and take appropriate action on f.y. '05 information technology, job analysis and market salary survey for positions that report to the Commissioners court, and 18-b is positions that report to elected and appointed officials other than the Commissioners court.
>> good morning. Alicia perez, executive managinger for administrative operations. As part of our work plan for f.y. 2005, the court appointed us to look at a couple of -- we had brought to you early on in a work session the results from the i.t.s. Family and this is a market salary survey to look at the jobs, compare them or match them to not only other counties but also other corporate entities to take a look at surveys and also survey other counties to look at job descriptions and come back to the court and tell you what the match is in terms of keeping the jobs competitive with the market. I have linda smith and joe harlow and l.u.ann shoal who is our compensation specialist on this project. We have looked not only at the Commissioners court positions but have reviewed other elected and appointed officials' positions and have the results for you today. I’m going to go ahead and turn it over to linda and malin.
>> the relative humidities are represented in your backup materials. The cover page of the backup memorandum. We can provide with you a highlight of this document and respond to any details that you might have. The job family, as alicia indicated, is the i.t. Job family. I might mention this is the last job family in the three-year strategic plan of comp analysis that the court approved h.r. Complete. There were 117 slots that were affected by this i.t. Job analysis. 18 departments were affected, both those reporting to the court as well as those in elected appointed officials areas. Job titles, I have one correction to read into the record here. We started out with eight job titles. Your document will show that it was expanded to 67. What I’m reading into the record today is we have added an additional job title which would be department manager. It does not change the costing as reflected in this summary, but represents the need for an additional title to serve the needs of departments performing multi i.t.-related functions.
>> instead of 67 it should be 68?
>> that's correct. And we talked about this in work session where normally in a classification project like this we've really told you over the years that we look to condense titles to refine, to make sure they are not those titles that are pofpling the same functions. In this particular case because the court had basically authorized and directed the i.t. Department to work with h.r. To revamp its organization and structure, we were dealing with a structure that was severely broken, if you will, relative to the market. So in this particular project, you're seeing an increase in the number of titles represented by the out datedness of the structure and also what is in the marketplace. There were no changes to five of the titles that we looked at. We do have some 111 upgrades that are represented in this report. And again, indicative of the movement of the market with the i.t. Titles and of course the work that we were doing to upgrade the structure. There is one downgrade that's represented in the report. The number of red lined employees, we started out with 12 as we started the project. As a result of the work we're now at zero, so we wouldn't have anyone who would be red lined assuming that the court approve our recommendation. Our costing is always projected as to the minimum of our proposed pay grades. And as you will see there based on the proposed pay grades, we have some 55 slots that would be green circled after the recommendations would be implemented. We in every project that we do we take a look at the fair labor standards act designations, and in this particular project we had two exempt employees who moved over to the non-exempt category. And of course non-exempts, those who would be eligible for time and a half, work beyond a 40-hour workweek. The estimated cost, cost it to minimum of the pay grades is for general fund $227,851. Again, that's $227,851. And of course you see the cost projected the 9,495 for other funds that are affected by these titles. Shift differentials we found in the marketplace that the i.t. Market does merit consideration for a shift differential. Joe indicated to us and demonstrated there are a number of his titles that absolutely cannot begin work until we shut down business hours with Travis County. This is not a pay practice that is different from what you have approved as appropriate in other departments. It is a first time consideration, though, for shift differential pay under the i.t. Department. That projected cost is not included in the 227,000 figure. That would be something, of course, that the department would need to work with to provide you with that level of detail.
>> just for clarification, when we talk about the cost, that is just to tell us what it would take to get people up to the minimum salary in terms of the changes. What is before us today is not about money.
>> no.
>> it is all about the classification.
>> you're absolutely right.
>> and the hiring ranges and to get people properly situated. It does not put money into this plan to fund it.
>> that's correct.
>> and we have traditionally gotten through budget process and we look at -- we've had the 6% solution, the 5% solution, and leaving it to departments to apply the dollars allocated to their department to try to work on their issues. On occasion we've thrown in money for green circles where it's beyond the means of the department, but that's really a budgetary situation and would not be impacted today in terms of more money being put into the plan.
>> and thank you. We probably should have mentioned that as we opened that you had requested that we bring the classifications in for consideration in the budget process. So that's correct. So with that, unless there is more information that you would want on the study itself, the department, h.r.m.d., is recommending that you approve these recommended titles, pay grades, consideration of shift differentials for i.t., specific titles, and then the fasl designation. This is for both i.t. Positions that report to the Commissioners court as well as those who report to elected and appointed officials. We have had a very collaborative and productive experience with the i.t. Department as well as with the elected officials. And have concluded on consensus that the titles that we're recommending are those that we all agree to fitting the needs of those respective operations.
>> so what is the recommended shift differential?
>> do you have that amount?
>> percentage would be 5%.
>> and it would cover those who work --
>> from 3:00 to 7:00 a.m., if they could work shift 3:00 to 11:00 and 11:00 to 7:00.
>> okay.
>> my only comment, I had a conversation with h.r. Is that with regard to appointed elected officials, if in fact they have a person, for instance, who is a programmer, this doesn't mean they will be called a business systems consultant, they will be called whatever programmers are called and that the job description will match what the person does so that they are evaluated against it and what they evaluated is what they saw people did. But if they didn't do that, if they got another job, if you approved different jobs in a department or they did not do that, that the appropriate title that is out there, and there's a lot of i.t. Titles, would be in fact applicable to that. And an easy one would be a programmer. If you have a programmer, they are not a business consultant and they should be called whatever the job description. So just as a clarification.
>> quickly going back to new money just in the sense of having a -- we originally did the 5.75% solution this year. 4% went out the door at the very beginning of the year. Have you distributed the additional 1.75% that was allocated to i.t. With the thought that if you hadn't, that some of that might go toward the issues within your department?
>> we have not distributed that, but there -- probably some of that money should go for real merit and some of it could go to take care of this need as well.
>> okay. En we get the budget, if youcoud up happening and whether any of it shifted a little bit. Thank you.
>> questions?
>> I move approval of 18-a and b.
>> second.
>> I think h.r. Should be commended for a very thorough job of -- very easy to understand and I appreciate the time and attention that you took to this project.
>> we also want to thank all of the elected and aopponent officials that work with us and negotiated with us and debated some of the issues that you have before us. It's been a collaborative effort and, you know, we're here before you with a couple of comments and with some of our partners in the audience that it's -- we want to thank them and acknowledge their work also.
>> [inaudible].
>> seize the moment. [laughter]
>> I might just add that it was a very thorough process and we spent a lot of time working with h.r. And it was a very collaborative effort.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 12, 2005 3:46 PM