Travis County Commissioners Court
July 20, 2004
Item 9
Now, let's go back to number 9 consider and take appropriate action on personnel amendment. Review and take appropriate action on policy authorizing temporary pay increases, the one thing that stood out about this request is that we have approved a few others. My recollection is that the others were very, very small compared to this one and it would seem that this one would cover virtually the entire tempt and when we put this in place, I did not anticipate it would ever be that broad. The other question is if in fact we follow low the preliminary budget recommendation and provide performance pay increases for county employees, for the employees who benefit from this action would be entitled to participate in the pay for performance for next year. Observations from human resources? This covers every employee in the department, right?
>> yes, essentially it does, and it's the across the board as represented by the titles noted in the personnel amendment. In terms of your question of whether or not any allocation that's made now would leave these individuals eligible for consideration for f.y. '05, portions of the allocation, that would be totally dependent upon any decision that would be made by the court. There's certainly options that would be available that the court could consider that if these actions were executed the parameters that are in progress now could govern our practice to address these actions.
>> for planning and budget, where does the money come from?
>> salary savings beyond budgeted?
>> [inaudible]
>> does this mean that the Commissioner's court budgeted too much money for this department last year?
>> you may want to respond to this one also.
>> the answer to that question is in the eyes of the beholder.
>> well, let's ask one of your beholders.
>> [laughter]
>> is this the product of outstanding efficiency and effectiveness or did you catch us at a weak moment when we budgeted a whole lot more than we should have?
>> I think it -- it probably year by year it's different.
>> crank him up, please.
>> thank you. A lot of it depends on our hiring pattern and how quickly we fill the vacant positions that we have. Some years we're leaner than others. I think it's a broad question whether you budgeted too much money. I mean it's -- I don't think so.
>> what's the total here?
>> it's $190,000.
>> 190,000 for general fund employees.
>> out of a budget of how much, joe?
>> our total budget is over 13 million.
>> total compensation budget is how much?
>> compensation line item number?
>> 18, 20 million.
>> the budget analyst here?
>> yes.
>> all right.
>> I was --
>> maybe more importantly so was there like a percent damage of increase is what? Is it the same for every employee.
>> there's a flat amount of $600 plus 2%.
>> $600 plus 2%. And why isn't this a colo rather than a lump sum based on some outstanding reason?
>> I don't know if the county has a colo policy.
>> that is precisely my point.
>> I deal with the compensation under the policies I'm given.
>> a flat $600 plus 2%. Sounds like a coda to me. By the way n. My younger life I have no problem with colo and I think our policy is pretty close to it. If you exceed that, then we have basically authorized additional payments. It's those things that gave me pause. Now, so I'm not blaming you for doing this, but my question really was whether this is consistent with what we intended for the policy to be. The wording of the policy is what?
>> the wording of the policy -- and I think it's included in your backup as the last page on the personnel amendments.
>> okay.
>> the policy actually provides three criteria that must be met. One of the three. Either of the three criteria that must be met to execute a temporary pay request has been made. The first one has to do item b one with expectations of exceptional performance in the future which may be based on experience, or it could have been, 2, additional duties to be performed that are substantially outside of the scope of regular duties. Or the third criteria, pay adjustment to respond to market. The policy says that either of these three would be acceptable to a department to make such a request with justification submitted to hr for us to consider in terms of putting it on the personnel amendments.
>> okay. Exceptional performance, additional duties...
>> and pay adjustment based on market.
>> are we able to go down this list and do those three?
>> it's one or the other. In accordance with the policy it was one or the other.
>> are we able to take these three and go down this list and apply one of the...
>> I used the first criteria for all.
>> joe, could you...
>> exceptional performers, 100% of them.
>> expectations of future performance.
>> joe, could you remind me, and I think I remember this correctly, about how you all do pay for performance in tnr? And it really is based on what the team does in terms of performance. It is not like employee x is fabulous and therefore they are singled out as being so fabulous, because you really take the approach that it is the team and the team is successful or the team is unsuccessful and they all have to work together for good things to happen as a team; is that correct?
>> partially correct. Some of our rating is based on team, some of it is on individual effort. And I guess part of the issue here is...
>> can you please crank up the volume? We cannot hear anything.
>> all right. Go, sorry.
>> perhaps I'm pushing the policy a little bit here.
>> you want to try a different microphone.
>> let's try a different mic.
>> we're having trouble with this mic. Can I get some volume?
>> testing, testing, 1, 2.
>> there we go. There we go. Thank you.
>> got it.
>> this one.
>> no, the other one.
>> there you go.
>> I'm not intentionally trying to talk quietly here, you know. [laughter]
>> didn't want to accuse you of that.
>> go ahead.
>> let's face it, I'm probably pushing the policy here a little bit, I think it's generally worded. I have the resources. I believe the compensation is warranted. If the intent of the policy was not to allow across the board I will appreciate that and I can withdraw the request if that was not the intent of the court. On the other hand, I do think what I have done is within the policy. Perhaps pushing it a bit, but I still think it's within it. The bottom line is this: there are pressures right now on your compensation and it doesn't just at tnr. I think it's across the board. I'm hearing it. I was trying to do something about it within the resources that I had and within the policies that are currently in place. There are no quota policies. There was no performance pay policy. We had the lump sum policy one time only, and I had the resources available this year. I don't know what's going to happen next year. And that's my dilemma. I don't know. Although I do know what may be happening on several -- for instance when it comes to benefits and the added cost of those benefits that are on the horizon. So, I mean you can probably predict better than I can what you're going to decide with regard to next year's budget. I don't know that, and I'm taking action or trying to take action today with certainty on what I know. A, i've got the resources. B, I can put it in our hands now and take care of some basic compensation issues that need to be taken care of. I'm through withdraw the request if this is creating -- perhaps going outside the box and wait for a perhaps a countywide solution on this.
>> well, as far as I'm concerned it's not causing me no heart burn.
>> nor i.
>> and let me just say this: when we came up with this, there was some employees that wanted the money right up front and I recall that and during the conversation, because one of the things since i've been on this court, one of the way us wanted to look at most stuff is can we do maybe both. If they wanted performance based pay, fine, but also if you wanted a lump sum, you can also receive that because i've put that in practice in my office for example. As an elected official I decided and my staff will say, look, they wanted this, and we had other elected officials, probably, that did the same thing. You had a choice, lump sum, or performance based pay situation, and of course that was the policy that I recall that was in practice and I don't see where you're out of the realm of what you want to do especially if you've got the money and the resources as far as invoking that, if it's a lump sum situation where employees can get a bump right now, it's not n. My mind, out of order because I practice the same thing. And of course there have been others that have had this in their practice, so I don't feel like...
>> but you didn't have 300 plus employees.
>> doesn't matter, judge. Doesn't matter. What does matter, though, is we help stay consistent as far as policies are concerned.
>> if we're going to be consistent, then I think we ought to see the justification in c. [multiple voices]
>> you can justify on the one...
>> let me finish my comments, please.
>> you interrupt everybody.
>> no, I have not.
>> every Tuesday anniversary sday and we put it up with it.
>> you're out of order, judge.
>> if we're out of order every time you interrupt somebody...
>> finish, Commissioner Davis.
>> thank you very much.
>> you're welcome.
>> I waited until you finish.
>> go ahead and finish.
>> what I'm trying to say is I have no heart burn with this, and if there's the resources there, there's a lump sum across the board, it's been fine with me. There's others that have done the same thing. I'm responding to what your request is and I can support it. Thank you.
>> I felt like I was -- I'm responding to the judge's excellent cross examination question. The answer was y'all did not budget too much, we had salary savings. These are the money we've asked for is about a total of $9,075. It's a portion to two associate -- apportioned to two associate judges. The reason we had salary savings is one of our associate judges took leave to run a political campaign and we then had a series of visiting judges. We're beginning to reorganize our family law section which includes the family law, child support and cps and we're expecting that these judges, based on their lengthy experience, will help us formulate good policy. We chose reason number one out of the county's policies and criteria of expectations of exceptional performance in the future which is based on their experience. We felt that was justified since we're beginning to change, that we took advantage of their experience.
>> so your request covers employees?
>> I beg your pardon, judge?
>> your request covers how many employees?
>> two.
>> and juvenile justice has how many employees?
>> civil court.
>> this was several and... This applies only to civil and not to the juvenile referrees.
>> okay. I request a one-week courtesy from the tnr. And my request also is that I would like to see the justification under c of the pol -- policy. And if it complies with the policy, consistency says maybe the number doesn't matter, but it certainly is contrary to what I anticipated when we put the policy in place. So I would like to see the backup that should have been filed with human resources in c and if the department wishes to augment that, that is fine with me, i'll be ready to act on it next week.
>> an judge, consistent with that, I respect that and I look forward to this coming back next week, but I will signal ahead of time, I have every intent of supporting the motion, although, I will do want to insist on previous times when we've had funding decisions kind of crunched together and that is that there either be a six month or a one year delay between when this gets authorized and when they are next eligible for performance-based pay, which I don't think will cause any kind of heartache within that division because consistently tnr does not award performance based pay until the August/september time frame which would be one year from today, more or less. So I'm just signalling ahead of time I have every intent of supporting...
>> I'm going support that also.
>> and relating to the 600 plus 2%, adding the 600 to the base in terms of what this request will be will help the folks at the lowest end of the pay scale who are very hard working road maintenance workers and parks folks that without that $600, they would be getting something that is so paltry because the 1% on a $19,000 a year salary is very small, so I find this structure also will give more of the money percentagewise going to the lowest end of the tnr pay scale as opposed to the upper end.
>> does the policy authorize adding any of this to the base?
>> I meant the base award -- the base of the award, not base of the salary.
>> any understanding that policy says lump sum.
>> that's correct.
>> move approval of the rest of the item.
>> second.
>> delay in tnr one week.
>> judge...
>> discussion? Yes, sir?
>> real quickly. I don't have a problem with this. I think I know what the intent was. But I think that it is really time for this court and the upper management in the county to pay attention to what is being done with salaries. 40% of our 4,000 people make under $40,000. And a large percentage of those make under $35,000 -- folks, you can't live -- when I go through this list and I see 19 and $21,000, I mean I'm -- I'm embarrassed the fact that we've got to pay -- and most of this comes out of tnr. I mean a substantial number. Now, I think that it's the Commissioner's court and I think it is upper management's responsibility to come up with a way to find the dollars to pay people wages because you can't live in Austin, Texas, with those kind of dollars. Now, that means that everybody has got to be creative about what they do. I mean some people make 5, 6 times the money that people make. You know, I understand that. I mean I don't know why a basketball player gets $18 million a year and a guy that picks up your garbage makes 1800, you know, a month. I mean, this country is very confused about that. But we as the administration, we need to take a look at this thing because i've got numbers from linda before, I mean a couple of weeks ago and I was pretty amazed at 4,000 employees that 50% of them make under $45,000. Now, that means, you know, you've got the other 50% that, you know, are knocking down some pretty good dough, well, that's fine, because there's lots of education attached to those, lots of responsibility, but I sure hope that we -- and you know what? You can't just say everybody deserves something and you just do it across the board. I mean, there's got to be some sort of performance. There's got to be -- management has really got to sit down and roll your sleeves up and say, "how do you pay people?" Keeping in mind that the tax rate can't be 56-cents, so I mean I hope -- I'm certainly willing to sit down at a table and look hard at this. I saw what you tried to do on this, joe. I don't have a problem with it. I'm glad we've got another week to look at it, but I think we need to look in different directions about what we do for compensation for people in this county.
>> I had one thought that occurred to me as we were looking at this, and I'm glad for the additional week, but we talk about the folks who make the members of the court look good with the public, excuse me, they're the ones who go out there and work in all kinds of weather to keep the roads, the pot holes filled and the rights of way mowed and I really -- if if there was any way to fix this a little bit would be to address those folks a little more.
>> permanently.
>> yeah.
>> and -- well, we can start here and then we can do some other things, you know w. Our compensation plan. So that's the one thought that occurred to me for, yes, I think you're right, I think we need to do something about the folks at the bottom of the pay scale.
>> maybe --
>> they are key members. Maybe be a bit more honest and not force managers to creatively circumvent policies and that's what joe has tried to do and.
>> criticize him, but I -- but I would be lying if I said this would be consistent with what I had in mind when we adopted temporary pay policy. We have approved many others. We have not approved that contain a department or a significant part of it. The other thing is that's what is in a preliminary budget is in a substantial amount that would cover 100% of the employees who deserve to be compensated which is what I think we ought to do. Now, we have been working four or five years to try to pair compare to believe the market and we've been agonizing over that at least four or five years and have spent millions of dollars. The money has to come from somewhere, though. If it doesn't come from taxes, where does it come from is the question? Joe is kind of lucky he does have another fun where some of this can come from but the other departments are not so lucky. But I'm willing to do what testify court wants to do. If we confront some of this straightforward then it's a whole lot better than taking something like this and giving it an entirely new meaning which is what I think we're doing. My motion covers all the rest of this item except the tnr. If there's justification for it you'll get a unanimous vote next week.
>> that includes all the rest totally unrelate jootd all the rest of this item.
>> got it. Anymore discussion? All in favor. That passes by unanimous vote. Move that we resource to 1:30.
>> just one question. There are two nonroutine item. Did your motion include the nonroutine items.
>> all the rest of the item.
>> just wanted to make sure.
>> all the rest of the item except tnr.
>> exactly. Everything.
>> okay.
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Last Modified:
Friday, October 28, 2005 12:37 PM