Travis County Commissioners Court
August 17, 2004
Item 2
2. Discuss and take appropriate action on fy 05 elected officials salaries.
>> I came before you last week. The substance of the topic is contained in a draft advertisement that starts to -- that starts the process of determining elected officials salary. We were briefed last week. The court had in springtime indicated its entire to have elected officials salaries pegged to the -- to the amount for rank and file. And as a result the advertisement before you shows a 5.75% increase for the bulk of the elected officials. Commissioner precinct 3 indicated that he again wished to keep his salary the same and in addition there was a proposal last year for a two phased approach for district judges in the '04 budget, a $10,000 amount was added to district judges, this is the second $10,000 phase for the district judges. That in essence summarizes the summary -- summarizes the content of that and -- around in the cover letter -- and in the cover letter you were -- you were briefed on the fact that the district attorney has two parts to his salary. A county part and a state part. The county part is relatively small. When you apply 5.75% to a small amount the net -- and add zero to the state, which is what the situation is, his -- his net increase would not be 5.75. It would be actually 1.2%. And you have a choice as to whether to adjust the county salary to equal his total salary being, going up by 5.75% or leave it as shown in the ad. You also have -- have accompanying agenda items related to a proposal on the j.p.'s and requests to address the county clerk.
>> on the next two items we take action to change the chart that you have here, you just make those changes after.
>> that's correct. And this -- we have until noon today, if this ad is to appear in the chronicle on Thursday, we have until noon today to submit it. You have one more week, if you wish, however, to submit the ad and still be a -- meet a series of deadlines related to elected official's salaries.
>> questions?
>> christian, you anticipate that -- if you worked -- if you were to vote today on elected official increases, then h.r. And -- what we are going to do budget-wise for h.r. And there's an across the board increase for that, is that in regard to what would be done today with increasing --
>> located officials' salaries are totally independent of rank and file and pops. They are as a matter of fact in a separate line item.
>> okay. So that -- so they wouldn't, if we voted county-wide for a pay raise, elected officials wouldn't be part of that.
>> no. They would not. This is a totally independent set of decisions. Now, obviously, from a -- from a -- from a -- programmatically, there was a prediction of rank and file and what you see on elected officials is exactly the same as what's contained in the preliminary budget. But in prior years, for example, the court did provide a -- an increase for elected officials and then held rank and file exactly stable. And provided no raises. And you can -- that has happened, that's -- and you can also do the opposite. You could provide substantially more for rank and file and very little for elected officials, and that has happened. These are votes that rise and fall totally independent of one another.
>> this might be more of a legal question, I mean, educate me in a couple of minutes if you can exactly what really is the -- the -- does the law say with regards to elected officials voting to give themselves -- I mean, how -- how is that -- I mean, you might be able to do it, but it sure doesn't sit well with me.
>> right. Unfortunately that is the way the legislature has set it up. And you are stuck with that job, five of you are stuck with that job of setting your own salaries as well as the other elected officials. At times it seems confusing burr the body that sets policies and rules for this county. So therein lies your obligation. You are not setting the salaries today. You are just establishing a maximum amount that will be advertised in the newspaper, christian will be following up with that. You will actually set the salaries in a couple of weeks, I think.
>> but we will be setting it today? I mean we are not going to advertise it and not do it. I doubt, unless we get, you know, toll road, you know, 10,000 e-mails again I suppose that would move us a little bit.
>> it's happened before.
>> it's happened before.
>> it has happened more than once where the ad appears and the Commissioners court in its wisdom decides to do something different than the ad. Lower. So it is an ad of proposed maximum salaries. Now, the amount of attention that is applied to the question when you do that increases, but it is within your right to do so.
>> can I make a comment on elected officials salaries have been watching them for 16 years. There always is the political interest because the Commissioners court votes for their own raise, but that's the same in every other kind of body, the top person who is paid votes for their own rate. It's the same for the city of Austin and other governments. When you compare -- puts y'all in a real precarious position. But when you compare the amount of money that the -- that this Commissioners court makes compared to Commissioners of other comparable size, your salaries are significantly on the low side. A couple of years ago, I did some actual research in calling the different counties because another thing that's important is do Commissioners have other full-time jobs. And is their position on the court full-time in essence or is it part-time? At that time, this was six, seven years ago, so it may have been changed, but the Commissioners court in Travis County was the only Commissioners court where the Commissioners and the county judge did not have close to full-time or part-time other employment. And the ethics rules that were adopted by the Commissioners court for Travis County make it very difficult for anyone to have other work as well as being a Commissioner. And so the reality is when you look at the salary comparisons of what the Commissioners and county judge in this county make compared to other counties, if you look at the compensation, compared to other compensation levels in the county, I think that -- that any eye could conclude that the Commissioners court certainly has not been favorably treated. It's because of your sensitivity of having to vote your own raise. For many years elected officials got raises and Commissioners did not take one. When you had a salary committee analyze elected officials salaries frequently they recommended larger raises for the Commissioners and the county judge than y'all took for yourself. So I realize you are in a peculiar position, but that's the law in the state of Texas. You are the ones that make the decision. And I think that it serves everyone in this community as well as in this county for the people who make the major policy decisions to be fairly compensated. So that's my opinion for what it's worth. I don't report to you all. I don't have to say this. I understand the complexity of work that you too, I知 familiar with what people get paid in other counties, I think what is proposed here is extremely modest and not unfair for you to take the same raise that the rest of the rank file takes. That's just my opinion on that. It puts you in a funny political position. But you didn't put yourself there. The law did.
>> this is basically like an crois the board 5.75% -- an across the board 5.75% for elected officials.
>> correct.
>> the total amount of elected officials is what, about 40?
>> I think we have about 50 elected officials when you count all of the judges.
>> 45. 45 is the number. It could be 50. I mean my councilman martin on my wall -- my chart on my wall, somewhere between 45 and 50.
>> when we make decisions on the district judges there is an impact on to a whole lot of associate judges who are not elected but they are linked so a decision on one is a decision on the other.
>> the thinking is that the 5.75 is the same percentage of increase that we would budget the departments for rank and file. And my support of the motion is contingent upon us doing that.
>> uh-huh.
>> so if we were to reduce that amount, then I would expect us to reduce for elected officials accordingly. So if next week is our last opportunity then if next week we do not affect our thinking on the 5.75 for rank and file, then I think we ought to do this, if we reduce that, I think we ought to reduce elected officials, also. That's for the record. Any more discussion?
>> you have the freedom to do that.
>> right.
>> discussion?
>> judge --
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> yes?
>> just this is for the base work and then we have two more items that may impact action --
>> right. Any specific changes we make in items 3 and 4 would be reflected in the ad and in this motion.
>> very good.
>> that's correct. If you defer items 3 or 4 for another week, then we would be unable to put the ad in because it's all linked. You have to have one ad.
>> okay.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? Show Commissioners Gomez, Davis, Sonleitner yourself truly voting in favor of it. Voting against, Commissioner Daugherty.
judge, Commissioners, you had a question on t 1. Your question was how much
visiting judge money was spent during the absence. The salary savings was
generated between November 14th and March 30th, March 31st is when the new
judge of county court at law number 5 was appointed. During that time 21,666
was used for visiting judges, that was a budget expense within the criminal
court's budget.
>> what's that total again?
>> $21,666.
>> that was the salary savings generated.
>> the salary savings generated was $40,000. That's the amount
that they are requesting to transfer to the regular salary line item.
>> all right. Now we paid somebody 21,000.
>> correct, visiting judges.
>> where did that money come from.
>> from a separate line item within the personnel budget
called visiting judge line item. That was a budgeted expense.
>> all right. When we put the visiting judge line item there,
what was that intended to cover.
>> that was intended to cover whenever a judge was away from
the bench, travel, training, sickness, anticipated absence, any number of
possibilities.
>> okay. The temporary pay request will be on the court's
agenda next week. Why wouldn't it make sense to make the transfer after action
is taken on that if it's approved?
>> typically because I mentioned earlier this was considered
non-routine because the department has a line item, I guess when the process
was set forward they asked that it go to planning and budget for confirmation
of funding first, then h.r. Would place it on the personnel amendments. But
we can do it at the same time.
>> we can do it at the same time.
>> [indiscernible]
>> say that again?
>> if it is not approved, if the temporary pay request is
not approved, you don't need to make the transfer, right?
>> that's correct.
>> so I知 just suggesting that we put the horse before the
court.
>> put them both together.
>> making sure that they are both there.
>> we can have h.r. Put the personnel actions on and we will
resubmit the budget adjustment.
>> okay.
>> I really am concerned about us approving 52 or 52 and
54.
>> it's 58 out of 60 [indiscernible]
>> 58 out of 62 regular non-elected official employees.
>> 58 out of 62, we are looking at 5.75% for all 62 of them?
>> that's correct.
>> it was my concern when we did the t.n.r., So I知 not inconsistent
on that. I would like to see it -- the justification from h.r.m.d. Unless
there's something dramatically different, I am kin klineed to -- inclined
to cast a similar negative vote.
>> okay. So nobody should be surprised. At this time I would
like to eyeball the justification. Last week it was read in court, same justification
for all 300 people. 299, whatever the number is.
>> yeah. So.
>> we are delaying t 1 until next week which is when the
proposed personnel amendments were going to come forward that would be triggered
by this transfer, it's an all wrap it up I知 just asking.
>> if the other members of the courtesies the light between
now and then, this may end up in the year ending balance. If not that will
be 60 happy employees and a happy county judge next Tuesday night.
>> it's another i'll call the mid point on that judge is
the amount, the deducted by 21,666, which would leave $18,334 that would be
in play as opposed to the full 40,000.
>> that would make more sense to me than anything else.
>> that might be a more compromising kind of situation that
we really do need to keep that other line item whole.
>> yeah. [papers shuffling - audio interference]
>> there is a -- right now, if you are a manager, there's
great pressure to be creative and innovative. Instead of the court sitting
up here approving temporary pay requests. When I voted to put a certain amount
of money aside for visiting judges, it never dawned on me that something like
this could possibly happen.
>> I知 just a real conservative leaning county judge. [laughter]
[multiple voices]
>> you are leaning towards that -- [laughter]
>> let's all lean together. [laughter]
>> the other budget item that you -- that you --
>> leroy let me make sure that we've got the numbers. The
2166 is what we spent on the visiting judges?
>> correct.
>> you might share that information with them, because they
may choose to send a different number to us as t whatever next week that it
-- might want to be an 18334 to try to woo the judge back or not. It would
be a much, much, lower judge, we would hold harmless that centralized line
item.
>> [indiscernible]
>> we will bring them back next week. The other budget item
that the court asked us to prepare during lunch was an amount to support the
maximum amount in the maxwell contract in anticipation of -- of approval for
that contract. In that contract the -- the ceiling on those fees was $25,000.
I prepared a budget transfer from allocated reserve, general fund allocated
reserve to the general administration other professional services in the amount
of $25,000. That I would like to get the court to -- to take affirmative action
on in order to set up the funding mechanism for the potential contract.
>> why is it coming from.
>> allocated reserve?
>> I think we need to do this. I also think that over the
next few days if there are like cash purchases that the county should make,
what we have been trying to do is make sure the hospital district is given
financial life October 1 so we don't have to do a whole lot of work on the
books this year. We have been told that maybe we really need maybe about $10,000.
What if we have authorization to use that for the district also and just report
to the court the amounts that are used. What we are told by the auditor is
that we would spend probably more than that to set up the books and everything
for '04 to get the proper accounting records in place. It just makes a lot
more sense to go ahead and assist in that amount this year. Start the books
October 1, all of the auditing, financial record keeping, et cetera, would
be affected.
>> right.
>> if we do the 25,000, in each summary for the district,
what we just use it. If it exceeds the 15,000, cuts into that -- into that
--
>> the difference.
>> right.
>> is that going to be the new t 1 or is that 212.
>> that would be t 12.
>> just so I know what to mark down.
>> I move approval of t 12 which is taking 25,000 from allocated
and moving it into general administration.
>> second.
>> so the [indiscernible] not to exceed.
>> yeah.
>> all in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all very much, thank you.
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Last Modified:
Friday, October 28, 2005 9:07 AM