Travis County Commissioners Court
October 11, 2005
Item 10
Number 10 is to consider and take appropriate action on request to approve shift differential increase for certain medical personnel in the sheriff's office.
>> the situation here is not much unlike the previous item and in September of '02 the Commissioners court approved a 10% shift differential as premium paid for nurse-specific job titles with the sheriff's proposal and recommendation, included in your backup, it is to increase the 10% shift differential to a level of 15%. The item that is listed, identified the employees who would be affected by that. And again it's one of those situations where -- where in their opinion the market will support a 15% shift differential as opposed to the current 10%. We are expecting, as your h.r. Department, in the work that's currently underway, that the adjustments that are being made and note that you approve in 9 as well as that proposed in 10 will probably hold as we bring the recommendations in, in mid-november. But this is just prior to the completion of that work.
>> the money that's been set aside to -- to satisfy this particular request, that -- that the court had -- had I guess moved on some time ago, would this percent increase as far as addressing -- adjusting the shift differential, will that be enough to -- to -- to accommodate the best of our knowledge of -- at this time, to -- to satisfy that as far as the amount of money? Is that -- [multiple voices]
>> as an h.r. Department, with the work in progress, we feel that the 5% increase from your current policy would be acceptable at this point. Pending the results of the work. The department actually proposed the 15%. So I’m making an assumption based on that proposal and request that's in your backup that they feel that that is sufficient.
>> that's sufficient.
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> what's the rationale for -- for 15%? Why not 12 or 20?
>> basically what we had country was look at what some of the other hospitals and local providers are paying. It's difficult because some of them do a percentage, but a lot of them do like a lump sum. And because of evening shifts and those weekends are getting harder and harder to recruit and retain, nurses for, we felt -- originally we looked at 25% because we believe the market is going to support anything between 15 to 25. So once we received the budget for -- and submitted the budget proposal, we did put 25% in there for shift differential. And when we received the budget, if you remember, it was at a 90% funding level. So shift diff was one of those areas we decided to cut back our original request and look at putting more of the budget money into the base salary. And that's just looking at what we know that the local market is paying out there.
>> is it fair to say, though, that if -- even after the -- the increases we approved in item no. 9 today, and the -- if we increased the shift differential, we are still spending substantially less than we would if we contracted out.
>> if we continue to contract, yes, sir. Because the -- because the hourly amount, if you look at what we spend, hourly, on -- on medical staffing, what we spend on those contract agencies, is much greater than what we will be spending on new salaries in the shift differential increase.
>> phil derryberry. Yes, this would be probably a savings -- we spent about two million dollars in the medical services line item this year. And we expect to spend about $1.3 million next year. So there's about $300,000 savings, relative to all of these other changes that -- at least. From contracting out.
>> a million three -- [indiscernible] run that by me one more time.
>> okay. We will spend about -- about $800,000 less in medical services this year -- this coming year, if all of these things work out. We put about $500,000 into the budget for this purpose. So there's about a $300,000 savings built into the assumptions -- [multiple voices]
>> [indiscernible]
>> I’m sorry.
>> I would like to move approval, judge, of item no. 10.
>> I was going to check my drink here.
>> excuse me. Multiple.
>> we don't want anything to slip away. Let's move approval of this item.
>> seconded by judge Biscoe. Discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. S we will see what changes are effected. Hopefully all will be positive.
>> before you leave, I guess nine and 10 is connected together, when do you feel that those other positions will be filled? Because these will also affect those persons that --
>> we are working with those persons now, he would like to have an offer made I would like to say by the middle of next week. The others that we are working with, that we have recruited to come in to talk with us, our process is a little longer because of our background process, but we expedite the nurses without leaving anything out on them and we have been able to get them through and -- within three weeks. That's our goal.
>> thank you. Thank you.
>> thank you all very much. That motion did pass by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, October 11, 2005 4:42 PM