Travis County Commssioners Court
October 28, 2003
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Executive Session Items
Number 47 is to receive briefing from the county attorney in Travis County v. Jose amozurrutia gonzalez (david -- next time let's put a gonzalez there -- david thacker resale deed), and take appropriate action. That's the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. 48. Consider and take appropriate action on amendment to the pay determination policy, s10.03001 through s10.03013, to define criteria and contract for pay adjustments in a single payment. That's also under the consultation with attorney exception to the open meetings act. We will discuss only these two items in executive session and we will return to open court before taking any action.
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>> no audio.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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>> now, we did have executive session this morning and discussed two items in this. We discussed number 47. What's the amount of that.
>> nine thousand dollars, judge.
>> authorize the county judge to execute a resale deed to david that canner because he has made us the amount of nine thousand even dollars in cash.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Number 48 is the proposed amendment to the pay determination policy to define criteria and contract for pay adjustments in a single payment. I have two problems with this. One is that the amount available in the opening budget for this, the gross amount, whether it was used or not, was $2.3 million. I don't know what that amount would be in '04. It could be substantial. In my view it would make more sense to have that money available for pay increases for all county employees next year. The other problem I have is as we heard, if we do this, five percent is a lot more reasonable than 10. It is a big number if you make a substantial salary. If you make a small salary, then it is less impactful. I wonder if we insist on doing it whether it makes sense to set a salary cut off above which only the five percent would apply, below which 10% could if we do it. Now, I just had this thought over lunch. It's a money thought, and if the concern is the lower your salary, the less good five percent will do, the opposite is true that the higher your salary, the more exorbitant it looks like 10% is.
>> and in terms of trying to get the flexibility there for managers, unfortunately, the place for abuse it at the higher end when the reason for having the higher number in there is to help those at the lower end. So would it be helpful to take another week and see if we can find a cutoff number that makes sense, the five percent versus the 10 percent? Yes?
>> I think it would.
>> take another week to see if we can tweak it with that in mind.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> any questions whether it's legal? Makes all the sense in the world to me. But if we accept the cutoff at $30,000, what -- we can do that? So it would be below 30,000 if you want to do this 10 percent and we not it would be only five.
>> somebody could get a 30 thu dollar --
>> no, salary. It couldn't be any more than 10 percent.
>> I was thinking wait a minute. [overlapping speakers].
>> I'm concerned about that.
>> yeah. And the number could be much more than that. It could be around that in '04. We really won't know. We won't know until later in the budget year. But if our goal is really on a one-time basis and enable managers to kind of deal with special situations, it makes sense. It could be that the compromise is to work with the percentages in such a way that we achieve maximum goal.
>> and it's one time. This does not get built into people's budgets. And I think we're trying to satisfy the flexibility to be given to managers for for many of them the second year without any kind of pay increases that if they can be darn flexible, that they ought to be able to squeeze them out. I can tell you in terms of my office, there will be nothing to squeeze out, so the flexibility is appreciated and I appreciate it, but it ain't going to happen in our office. But I think we shouldn't penalize others.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> y'all have to be real tired. Yeah, if there are restrictions on levels, we might not be able to program that. So from a purely monitoring, it would be better if the percent were the same for everyone.
>> what about hmrmd?
>> and managers.
>> if you have a cutoff, $30,000 is easier. I would take it to the managers in hmrd to do that. So a determination ought to be based. It could be between now that hmrd and the managers tell us that we can't do it either, but I'm thinking that whatever the figure is, whether it be 40,000 bucks, I will know which of my employees the percentages could cover.
>> you have an automated system now, and we check a lot of the rules that y'all have for payroll. We would not probably be able to check if you had two separate personals. What we could do as an alternative would be to have the department or hrmd sign off on that, but I don't think they would -- that's kind of --
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> let's take another week. [overlapping speakers].
>> I just wanted y'all to make sure there was an issue with that.
>> check out the air pollution in mexico. [ laughter ] [overlapping speakers].
>> just make sure that 30,000 is the ceiling and then that is the five percent or the 10 percent of the 30,000. So you would either have a 3,000 arrest a 1500 -- or $1,500.
>> but we have to work out the issues with programming: [overlapping speakers].
>> I think all of this is a bigger deal than it needed to be because people really don't have the money to do this. And the problem is if you have it y'all throw it all out.
>> I just heard something. The judge said he'll do five. I'm fine with five and we move on with our lives and it's consistent. I would move approval of the policy with the five percent cap that's included with this.
>> second.
>> any more discussion? Just an across the board five percent for the policy criteria as effective.
>> a five percent cap, yeah.
>> all in favor? Show Commissioners Sonleitner, Gomez, Daugherty and yours truly voting in favor. And voting against, -- no, it's a unanimous vote. Now, there is no further business today, right?
>> move adjourn.
>> all in favor? That passes unanimously also.
Last Modified: Wednesday, October 28, 2003 7:52 AM