Travis County Commssioners Court
May 20, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Item 9
9. Consider and take appropriate action on fy 2003 implementation parameters for position classification changes, in accordance with the classification and compensation strategic plan and year 2 job analysis results, as approved by the Commissioners court April 1, 2003.
>> good morning, judge, members of the court. [indiscernible] with me is norman mccree, also on your h.r. Human resources staff. As the judge indicated we are here today to present to you proposed implementation parameters to implement the year two job analysis results that you approved on April 1 of 2003. These implementation parameters are primarily the mechanics, the administrative operational details to making tho results happen. For the 1,000 or so positions that you approved in that proposal that we submitted for -- for classification changes. We have worked with and met with the planning and budget office as well as representatives from the auditor's office. Who reviewed and provided input into these parameters. In addition to that, we met with the affected departments last week and shared with them the parameters that we are proposing for your approval today. We had mentioned before that we thought that we would be ready to roll with the June 1, implementation date. You will see in what we have provided for you that we are proposing in order to get the hte system ready to receive these massive changes, we are proposing a July 1 '03 implementation date. So with that, I will have norman walk through the few parameters that we have listed here.
>> okay. The first -- again, with the effective date of July first, that's when all of the slots would be changed to reflect the approved fy '03 classification and compensation job analysis results. That will be both filled and vacant slots would be updated on hg with the new job titles, pay grades and fsl -- flsa status. What we are recommending doing is generating automated [indiscernible] for departments to approve by July 31st. All of those paf's would be generated by the system. There wouldn't be any salary adjustments with those automated paf's. Also of course the revised pay range structure will be updated to the systems where we have added pay grades at the end of that scale. We will also flsa conversion, so with that, any comp time balances that employees have that would be that are non-exempt going for exempt, of course that would be charged to the apartment's overtime budget. Job descriptions departments will -- employees and current job descriptions will be grandfathered to meet new minimum qualifications for those jobs. We also have -- a -- a green circled employees for the first time here in Travis County because of the -- because of the approval of the classification changes with -- with no funding, there will be some employees that are below minimum of the pay grade for the first time here in the county. We call those green circled and those will be both employees and vacant slots would be green circled. That's the opposite of red lined. That the red lined theory. Below minimum. Again these would be fill and vacant slots at less than minimum and they will remain as is until permanent salary savings are available. If they don't have any permanent salary savings, they are not going to move these people up to the minimum that do have those available. Again, the departments that do have permanent salary savings need to get with their p.b.o. Analyst and give them a spread sheet that identified those permanent salary savings. At that time then we are recommending that as of August 1st, departments that do have permanent salary savings can bring those employees that are less than minimum up to the minimum of their respective pay grade. Also, personnel changes in green circle slots, these are subsequent personnel changes because we have the slots as they are today filled or vacant and then there may be new employees that come in or promotions, mobility changes, et cetera, we are recommending is that any subsequent changes in these slots must result in pay equal to at least -- the pay grade unless permanent salary savings are not available. If there's a subsequent change in one of these slots, we want the departments to bring that person in at the minimum level. Unless they just don't have any permanent salary savings, then they would remain at least at what the pay level or budget level was before. And classification changes to lower pay grades, employees with -- with changes to lower pay grades shall incur no loss of pay. And that's -- that's what we have here for our implementation parameters. Any questions? Mr. Ellis? -- mr. Nellis, p.b.o. Has comments?
>> the only dmeant p.b.o. Has is that linda is working with the auditor's office to establish a flag on all of these green circled slots so that we can keep track of them, run reports to see exactly how many of them we have and what the financial impact would be to -- for departments to bring them up to minimum. I -- sent out on Friday a memo about the effect of internally funded these, that's what actually going on here from internal permanent salary savings. We are currently looking at budgeted salary savings for all departments in Travis County. We are going to incorporate this in our analysis and we will be sharing that financial effect if the -- at the work session next Thursday with you. Any time you actually internally fund any type of expenditure it tightens up the departmental budgets and basically less falls to the ending fund balance. We will be sharing that with you at the work session on the budget. That's all that we really have.
>> we said the effective date of this was July 1.
>> July 1.
>> do we believe that the departments know what we mean by permanent salary savings?
>> I can comment on that. A lot of the budget requests incorporated using internal funds in their fy '04 budget request to fund these -- these position upgrades. Do we know whether the departments know what we mean by permanent salary savings.
>> I believe most of them do. My conversations with them -- [multiple voices]
>> probably need [multiple voices]
>> written definition.
>> thank you.
>> we need to make sure -- [multiple voices]
>> we need to have a definition of that.
>> the importance of that is I’m sitting here now thinking that we are talking about salary savings in excess of budgeting salary savings. Is that your definition?
>> well, the salary savings that we are talking about here is permanent salary savings means that the slot list is budgeted at an amount in excess of what the person's making in that position. In other words, if someone -- if we had a slot that had a $35,000 a year employee and that's what the budget was, when that employee leaves a lot of times that employee may be at midpoint or above, and they hire at minimum, then they would have what's calmed permanent salary savings -- called permanent salary savings, which is a reduction in the permanent salary base.
>> that's my point. We need a written definition of permanent salary savings. I do believe that if you line up 10 department heads, you will get 10 different definitions of that.
>> yeah.
>> I -- we need to -- this is a narrow window.
>> uh-huh.
>> so I don't know that -- that -- I don't know that every employee covered by this should think that his department will -- will generate permanent salary savings to provide this additional compensation. But with a written distinction that's clear, straightforward, I feel a whole lot better.
>> yeah.
>> now, when the -- when the -- when changes are recommended and the funding is from permanent salary savings, who will certify that?
>> we are -- we are saying in the implementation parameter that p.b.o. Will certify the ability of permanent salary savings before we process a personnel action.
>> judge, on that very point, we have been working for a couple of months to write a program in the automatic paf application, it's been tested, we have tested it on the test system. Shown it to p.b.o. They were -- they told some of the things they wanted, there were things we wanted. That will give p.b.o. The tool to catch those. Because what we have been trying to do last year, we put a rule in it, if you go over overtime, you have 15 days to fix it, that's working very well, we are not seeing people have huge amounts of overtime that are unbudgeted and not taken care of. That's taken care of. The other real loop is that what you just addressed, that is that since there's some fluid movement in the departments to determine whether or not when they process the paf they really have any permanent salary savings or have the money to proceed. So this had been tested. We have been looking at it but it hasn't gone live yet. The check will be for p.b.o. They will look the at it and say yes we have permanent salary savings, yes, you can process this. If they don't the paf simply will not move forward. Then our office will have another check, that is that some conversation as to whether normal salary savings are optional or required. If in our opinion we don't think there's going to be enough money in the budget for the slots, we may well stop it if we saw, you know, a real problem out there that they missed. You have that dual control there. But I think to the extent that we can get these things automated where they are not difficult to check, there will be more success -- there will be more success in that. I can't remember offhand leroy, I’m sort of touching about 20 things right now, when we are going to bring that up live with p.b.o., It is within striking distance. I think that our goals should be it ought to be up and running when we implement this.
>> we had a meeting with susan's staff last week and the permanent salary savings piece of the implementation, we have absolutely no questions about. I think it works fine. We are still working with the temporary salary savings piece of the implementation.
>> so there are salary savings, there are salary savings beyond budgeted salary savings, and there are permanent salary savings.
>> uh-huh.
>> temporary.
>> we can get some definitions with h.r. That we get to the departments that are affected by this so that it's -- it's clear what is required of the departments in order to implement the -- the classification changes.
>> but I think it's important for departments to understand that up front. To me the most telling thing about the -- about the salary savings beyond budgeted salary savings is those salary savings no longer exist because we spent them. Beyond the budgeted salary savings, right?
>> right.
>> what we have budgeted in the general fund is about $2.8 million. Which are in -- for the '03 budget, those are anticipated lapsed salaries. In other words that's from the person -- a position being vacant for one week, one day, or -- or, you know, six months. Those are just lapsed.
>> but the important thing about them is that we spend that money.
>> that's correct. In the budgeting process, when you have a contra account for salary savings, that means that we have projected it and you have spent it on something else. So -- so -- we will get some definitions out to all of the departments and to the court so that there's not any question what the -- what the implementation requirements are. [one moment please for change in captioners]
>> I move approval of the implementation parameters.
>> second. Any more discussion. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
Last Modified: Wednesday, May 21, 2003 3:52 PM