Travis County Commssioners Court
June 15, 2004
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 26
26. Discuss and take appropriate action on fy 2004 job analysis project, part ii: recommended job titles, pay grades and flsa designations. And as soon as we did this -- do this item, it is tied to item no. 20, which is where we will go next. And then we will try to get back to the order of the agenda. To -- picking up any left overpieces.
>> the director of h.r. Will make that reputation.
>> joining me is louann shul. We are here today as we are posted to discuss and take appropriate action on the fy '04 job analysis project part 2. Recommended job titles, pay grades as well as flsa designations, as you will remember on may 11th, you took action on the majority of all of the job families and titles that were included in the package that represented some 85% of -- of our fy '04 project. Today, what we bring to you is -- is really a two-part report. In this particular report we have it laid out in your backup materials as part a and part b. And part a we have some miscellaneous titles that had been included in the senior middle management job family as well as in the public safety emergency management job family. Part b, we took a look at the temporary positions, which are our seasonal and hourly employees. We had 3 departments, of course, that are affected by the use of those temporary titles and positions and we have recommendations related to those. If you would take a look at your golden rod page, this will become a real nifty one-page representation of all of the work that we do. I have done -- and have done in presenting to you these recommendations, it is a statistical summary. You will see in the far right column the action that you took on may 11th, '04. What we are presenting today of course are those fy '04 part a, parted b, the two middle columns that are there. Are we altogether with that? Okay. If we take part a, 2 a of the report, which is the sending column from your left, what the report includes here is -- is the representation of the two job families that -- that were saying that the titles that we are bringing to you are included within. There were 18 slots affected by the work that we did. There were 14 departments that were affected. The number of job titles that we worked with we started with 7. We ended with six. There were no changes in the -- in the classification of -- of -- found zero changes in some of our classifications but there were indeed 18 upgrades that we found within the work that was completed, which evidenced to us that these positions as we expected were -- were indeed below the market. There were zero down grades that are represented within this package. Of the red lined employees, we started out with four red lined employees after our work there were zero. The green circled employees are the slots that we have, there were four out of the work completed out of the total of 18 that became green circled. This of course, as you will remember, would be those positions that -- that fall below minimum of our proposed pay grade. There were no titles that were affected by the livable wage rate of $9. There were no titles that were affected by the exempt to non-exempt status, but we did indeed have one title that moved from non-exempt to exempt. The titles that are affected in this part a report are those of the office manager. If you will remember that you had some communications from the justices of the peace related to that. We are awfully pleased to report to you that we have worked with the justices of the peace and have reached consensus on the recommendation that's included within this report. As well as the other departments that are affected by that. The other items in here as well as in -- in the 2 b part, we have reached consensus with all of the departments, in fact, on the recommendations that are before you. But if we would move from part a, unless you have questions on that. I'll move to part b which relate to the temporary positions.
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>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
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>> ... Four that would hit the green circle which means they would get a rise in classification but wouldn't be making the minimum based on what they are making now and it would take 26,694 from the general fund to eliminate the green circle problem for those employees.
>> and that's correct.
>> further discussions under a?
>> under part 2-b, we have the temporary positions. You'll see the number there of 3500. That number was somewhat astonishing to some who received this report. And if you see tonight total, it does become a little bit of overwhelming to say you mean we had 3500 temp people to work in seasonal and hourly capacity and the answer to that is yes. Because what we have represented in the 3500 are the approximately 2800 elections workers that the county clerk brings in as well as t.n.r. With their park tax, school crossing guards and h.h.s. All of those are departments and slots represented within that 3500 number. So don't be shocked. I mean it's all real real and it's all within the framework of the business needs, of course, of the county. Many of those are legislated federally and statewide in terms of what the hourly rates would be on the interpreters as well as the elections worker category. Once we did the analysis on that, in addition to going into the market, we also had to take into consideration the legislative mandates that accompany the hourly wage rates of some of those positions. I did list the three departments that are affected by that. We were able to increase the job taoeultszs under the temp positions from 18 to 189. We are excited about working with the temp positions because as you might imagine, with 3500 slots, that can get pretty unwieldy when it comes to titles, pay rates, we need to move them in fast as well takes department to sometimes manage all of that. This particular project created an opportunity to improve our process for more efficiently working through hiring as well as processing the large numbers in a very efficient and quick manner. We did find that the -- there are 10 upgrades associated with the pay rates that are noted for these positions. There is no fiscal impact to the general fund for the temporary positions that are noted. We have the recommendations before you. If you want us to walk through the individual recommends on each title, we -- recommendations on each title, we will be more than happy to do so. We do have representatives from each of the departments to speak to any questions you might have. What I will indicate is that there has been a serious recruitment and retention problem and challenge especially among the deaf interpreters and also as it relates to election worker. Now that we have the market based pay rates that we're recommending to you, we're really hoping that will satisfy many of the challenges they've been faced with in that regard. Speaking of those challenges, the deaf interpreters, item 20, I believe, there's a request before you to make these recommendations assuming that you approve them effective immediately. It's my understanding that the county clerk is also requesting for an 8-1-04 election date for the election workers pay rate that's proposed here. And t.n.r. Has not expressed that concern for their park techs or school crossing guards, but we would certainly leave that option open since it's not a general fund impact for them to come back to you with that request if necessary. So with that, I believe luann and leslie ann tells me i've missed something. Those are our recommendations.
>> linda, I guess in lieu of the direction we're going, I don't want to lose sight of some recommendations that i've been trying to get addressed and that is to look at the former space paid being add to do the salary base of employees to trying to also to continue to address red line employees. Of course that would be something that the subpoena -- at the supervisor's discretion, but it would also be an ongoing situation as far as the amount of money that's allotted to that department to look at red line employees and ensure that if that pay adjustment is added to the salary base, then of course that will help them in the long run as I think I sent you a memo on that that I don't want to lose sight on this especially during the budget process when we start really looking at these things a little more clearer. So I just want you to alert you all that I?m still pursuing that policy change. Instead of lump sum, looking at as we have current policy now, but also look at it as far as [indiscernible] policy to ensure that the red line employees of Travis County have an opportunity to have performance base pay added to their salary base.
>> just to publicly acknowledge, Commissioner Davis, that I did receive your one-page request for us to take a look at your proposal. What we're doing now is not only researching that, but in addition to that, including that among the implementation parameters for any compensation-related allocation that the court might make. In addition to red lined, we have included in parameters any actions that we would propose on green circled slots. Actions related to other classification reviews, performance base pay levels. It's sort of a package in addition to the red lined. We will be looking for direction from the court in your discussions as you continue to speak about the budget and all that's related to that direction from you directly or indirectly in terms of when you would want us to come back with those parameters. Typically I will say that we have come forward after the budget or the total percentage allocation has been designated.
>> right. Right.
>> so we have certainly not forgotten you.
>> right, okay, I didn't -- I just --
>> one thing I will add about red line just since you brought that up and not to belabor that point, but we had mentioned when we started our three-year strategic and compensation initiative that we were hypothesizing that once we worked through all of the classification reviews, that many of those positions that were red lined would indeed become unred lined. And what we're finding in now the third year that we've come forward to you with the results is just that. That those classifications existed. The reviews have brought those positions into the appropriate alignment and they are not red lined at this point. There obviously are some and we'll be talking in more detail as we bring that back. There is also a portion of this report -- well, let me back off and just in terms of the recommendation that's before you, that completes parts a and part b. And what we're submitting. And we will have hopefully part 3 and the final report to f.y. '04 to you in July or early August.
>> linda, could you walk us through the four -- understanding the four titles that are still below the livable wage of $9 an hour? We've got a couple of those.
>> we've got -- if you look at page 10 of your backup, under the temporary positions on -- for example, under the election titles, we have election day worker, which is mandated at minimum wage of $5.15. Does everyone see that? And then election worker, which is at $6. And then an election clerk primary trained, and that's $7 and that's also a legislatively pay rate.
>> somebody else has trumped us related to dictating what the pay shall be in opposed to us having the flexibility in terms of what it may be.
>> exactly.
>> any other folks related to column b? Is there a motion on approval of the recommendation from h.r. Under item number 26?
>> I would move approval.
>> i'll second that.
>> it's been moved and seconded. We still have discussions about what h.r. Has brought forward to us.
>> does that include the total --
>> that's simply to make us aware of what the numbers would be for us to fix that, but that is an item that gets rolled forward into the budget process and I think linda was saying that they are working on some guidelines right now related to issues to be brought up to court once we know what the final compensation number will be that we're all dealing with related to performance based pay, green circled, red lined, what have you. Is that correct, linda?
>> that's correct.
>> is there an understanding of that then? That it's just about the work that's been done and not about the dollar amount? All those in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all.
>> and thank you for getting the peaks and valleys. Was there any department that wanted to speak either under a or b? It seemed like there was consensus and we'll take silence meaning that was good work.
>> thank you all.
>> ok .
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 16, 2004 1:30 PM