Travis County Commssioners Court
October 22, 2002
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Item 13
13 approve personnel amendments.
>> good morning, judge, commissioners. [audio problems, please stand by]
>> we have a couple of departments that have some non-routine items that we have listed. The first is the sheriff's office. They are transferring a couple of their employees from civilian positions to pops position and requesting that they go in higher than step 1, which [inaudible] be the policy based on their years of experience. [inaudible] from the sheriff's office is here, as well as others. [papers shuffling - audio interference]
>> before you get into it, if this is one of the routine ones, on slot 36 and 12787 these are the sheriff's lots, are these part of the 10 exempt slots that the sheriff has.
>> page 5, number 2 and number 3.
>> one of the positions, commissioner, would have been one of the exempt civil service exempt positions. Which will be total sheriff discretion. The other position would not have been [inaudible] and that -- the one that was -- that would be civil service exempt --
>> yes.
>> -- would be the one that was occupied by rick greshner -- do you have names in front of you.
>> no, sir, is the captain to a major slot exempt.
>> the captain would be the exempt slot. Then the executor's position would be the -- director's position would be the classified slot.
>> I believe the answer to your question is on page 5, slot 36 and 1287 are both exempt positions. These two. Both of those are. They both are.
>> okay. That's the magic words, you got the money, you get to do it. They are the exempt slots.
>> they are routine because they are consistent with Travis County policy.
>> yes, they are within 5% salary increase for the promotion.
>> okay. That's what I needed. The two transfers to the pops scale are non-routine because they are going above step 1 and that's why they are listed as non-routine.
>> because they are above the what now?
>> policy on pops is that the employees start at step 1 and the salary for step 1 and if their actions where someone is going from a civilian pay scale to the pops above step 1 then they are non-routine, that's what the request is here.
>> were these two employees never on the pops scale?
>> they were.
>> so they were on the pops scale, then there was a break -- I won't call it a break in service, there was a pause they were on the safelyian scale -- on the civilian scale.
>> if you promote above the lieutenant level it's actually off the pops scale but it's the next step in the career ladder for the sheriff's office. So if they are returning to the pops scale, they are basically moving from the non-pops back to the pops scale, but --
>> where they once were.
>> it would seem inconceivably that we would say I'm sorry you will have to start at grade 1 again. However, have you all been able to look at this that if that person had never left the pop scale to begin with, is this where they consistently would have been based on their years of service?
>> yes.
>> that was the theory we used. Yes.
>> the first one is a pay difference of about two thousand.
>> yes.
>> questions. That's in your budget?
>> yes, sir, it would be in our budget.
>> the second one really is a decrease, am I reading that correctly?
>> yes, sir.
>> of course that is there.
>> yes, sir. Financially you are looking at pretty much an offset with these two actions.
>> to some degree.
>> my question is normal policy -- I think we have come -- kind of run into this in two consecutive weeks as far as continue yaig. You have a break in service --
>> the policy --
>> you come back later, you have a tipiation. How would that -- continuation, how would that be with a rank and file employee, not pops related. Most of these I think the last situation that came before the court were from basically elected officials. Now, let's get out of the elected official arena here for a minute. Let's have personnel break in service. And they -- they are reinstated to a continuation of service. How do we handle that from the elected official's point of view and the employee and then the non-elected official? Is there a difference in policy?
>> I think going to be describing typical, based on typical county policy. We three may want to say something in context with civil service.
>> right, because I want to try to stay as consistent as possible in what I'm doing and not giving any advantage to one employee opposed to the other one. That's where I'm trying to land as far as what he is our policy, period, across the board when we have the tipiations of breaks in service.
>> well, I will stay out of the civil service realm. By the way we present these to the court are the same for either elected or non-elected officials at this point. And the policy on pops is that an employee going into new -- newly into a pops position will start at step 1.
>> all right.
>> and their years of service is based on continuous service under pops and there's a -- there's a difference between experience in the sheriff's office and experience in other pops positions such as constables, investigators and park rangers, those are two separate years of experience that are given. So the way we present these to the court, if the department requests an employee to go on to the pops scale and they don't start at year 1, and the salary for year 1, then we present it as non-routine. There are good reasons the department may want to do that as we presented last week. And in these situations, this week, of course, these employees have been at the county for a long time. It's just that we present them this way because they don't strictly follow what the pops policy states. But we would -- present these to the court the same way for any individual coming on the pops scale.
>> non-pops.
>> there's a continuation policy [multiple voices] -- if someone comes back within a year to the same department, same position, then they can retain their years of -- their longevity and accrual rates and retain their previous pay as well. So that's kind of the policy.
>> okay.
>> I think we need to consider modifying our continuing service --
>> yeah, I think so, judge.
>> in any case circumstances under which we think that we will waive that.
>> yeah.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> if that can be a friendly judge, added into that coming back to modify continuation of our policy, I think that's a -- is that a friendly.
>> way friendly.
>> based on what we have been doing.
>> I believe so.
>> I can bring it back. Okay. Thank you. Just on these two the motion covers. Any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> the second one is for constable 3. And that's a request, this is a non-pops position request to bring an employee at the maximum of the pay grade. And the details are on page 6 at the top as far as the position. It's a nine court clerk 1. [inaudible] is here to answer any questions related to that request.
>> constable mcangus, understands this person would be red lined, do you have moneys available in your budget to permanently fund this position.
>> yes, commission.
>> what's the justification for bringing the person in at the max?
>> this person has worked for us as a temporary at various hour levels for about the past nine months. And it was -- in fact it was one that we were converting from a temporary to a permanent position and in the interim she got another job offer so we are trying to bring the person back on to our payroll full time as a permanent employee.
>> okay.
>> this pepper exceeds minimum qualifications?
>> yes. This person exceeds minimum qualifications?
>> yes.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> I have a couple of questions, thank you, judge. I guess my question is this, here we have a person that bringing in and red lining situation by looking at what your basically -- what you're basically proposing, according to what you are saying, a person qualified for this position. However, if what would have been the difference in that person could have been brought in at another level, but not per se within a red line situation, but yet paid the same money. What's the variance -- what's the difference on that? The future of our red line employees, of course bringing a person in at that level, at a red line, go ahead, if you can explain to me why couldn't they be brought in at another level whereby they won't be red lined but yet making some of the same money.
>> > I hadn't really thought that all the way through. We were just trying to get the employee on board. This particular employee is highly skilled and -- in tiburon.
>> I'm not saying they are not skilled. I maybe need to ask h.r. This question. Personnel. As far as what would be the difference in bringing a person with -- if the skill set is that great, as far as what you are saying, as far as what we are going to be looking at paying them, then you bringing them in the red line which goes -- going to -- going to pose the challenges as we go through this red lining, not a lower grade, but a grade that basically pays the same thing, but not red lined.
>> clerk slot.
>> I will attempt to answer that question.
>> the position is authorized as a pay grade 10. So that's the highest level they have authorization to fill. So the pay grade 10 rangings up to the 32,739.20 that they are requesting. So they don't have, within the budget, with the pay grade authorized for that particular slot is the 10. So -- so there's not an opportunity to change it to a higher pay grade at this point.
>> so that's going to be -- posing additional challenges in the future then.
>> does the employee understand what -- where they would be placed on the pay scale in terms of the limitations of --
>> limited --
>> yes.
>> they do understand that?
>> does this create any issues for you, this would be issues related to internal equity, that you are comfortable, that you have thought through all of the implications of doing this?
>> yes.
>> I think we have talked about the flexibility, not just autonomy of the elected official, but all of us to give the flexibility to the managers to make the decision, keep us out of the internal equity, manage your workforce.
>> any other discussion.
>> I wanted to know -- the reality of what it is there.
>> thank you for those comments.
>> thank you.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> [inaudible]
>> I move approval.
>> seconded by commissioner Gomez. Any discussion of that motion? All in favor? That carries unanimously.
Last Modified: Wednesday, April 2, 2003 10:25 AM