Travis County Commissioners Court
August 24, 2004
Items 9 & 14
Go to Item 14
We have representatives of the criminal courts here so let's call up 12-b
and try to get it done this morning before lunch. Not 12 b but 9 b. A
is routine items and b request for temporary pay for criminal courts employees.
This morning under the budget aeplgts amendments and transfers, we did
have a request to tr-frb $40,000 -- transfer $40,000 which was reduced
to --
>> 21,500.
>> $21,500. Good morning.
>> good morning.
>> criminal court, judge and commission had requested approval
of temporary pay increase of 57 of 62 employees within the department. Effective
9-1-04. P.b.o. Confirmed funding and rrmd received the justification which
is attached to your personnel amendment. This is carried as a non-routine
item as a request of court that we post these items as non-routine matters
for your consideration. We have department representatives here as you have
indicated and I知 sure they are ready to respond to any questions that you might have.
>> anything from the court other than that laying out of
the issue?
>> we think the issues are adequately explained. We would
just like to highlight it was due to additional duties that were performed
that were above and beyond what's to be reasonably expected from the staff
within those departments.
>> how are you going to split it up because what we've
got is the laying out of everything under the $40,000 scenario. We have
not gotten anything related to the 21, 21, 5 scenario. Am I presuming, deborah,
you took the suggestion made last week deduct out what we had to pay for
the visiting judge line item so that it truly was a number that --
>> just so there's no confusion about that, I believe there
was a little confusion that it was coming directly from the visiting judge
line item, which was not ever the case. We did originally request the 40,000
from a vacancy in the elected officials line item. At your request last
week we reduced that amount because we did find additional salary savings
unrelated to the elected official. That vacancy. So the total that we are
now requesting from that line item is 21,500, which is what was brought
to your attention this morning. Did judges -- and this was the elected officials
for the county court at law line item. The judges actually covered -- and
you may recall this because I believe they came and talked to you about
this at one point -- that they covered a good month and a half pretty much
themselves of the vacancy. By taking on extra duties. And so 45 days of
that, we did not even use visiting judges during that time slot. That equates
to about $18,000 of that 21, 500. Then there's still about eight and a half
days, and after talking to the county court at law judges, what they did
during that period is that even though they may have had a judge assigned
to court 5 to cover, they shared that judge. So in lieu of one of the judges
getting an additional judge to cover their own court, two of them might
use one judge so that we were not using additional funds out of that visiting
judge to cover that period. So I don't see that there's an overlap at all
with that visiting judge issue that was raised last week.
>> would it matter any if the court were to allocate 5.755%
of the compensation line item to the department so we designate part of
that to be an across-the-board increase, either 3% or 4% and basically authorize
the criminal judges to do with the rest of that what they saw fit to meet
the department's compensation goals? Why wouldn't that make a big difference,
I guess? If I can give you a little bit of context, when I supported temporary
pay, my thinking was we have not voted pay increases and did not know when
we would, although we always try, one; and two, there are employees who
performance is exceptional throughout the year, and if the departments can
generate a little bit of money above and beyond budgeted salary savings,
they ought to be given the flexibility to use those savings to compensate
those extraordinary employees. So I知 viewing that as being history. I知 viewing those circumstances have changed. And I was hoping that this morning we would have the vote to show it. I have not seen anybody on the court waiver on the 5.75%, so in my view it's safe to say I think that that's close to a done deal barring a tornado that destroys, you know, a major county facility. And based on what i've heard other members say that may be an across the board, it may be 5.75% given to managers to do the right thing in compensation. So if in fact I知 right on where we are, why wouldn't that take care of the managers' efforts to award employees who are deserving.
>> i'll start by saying this proposal was discussed several
months earlier, and the delay in presenting it had a lot to do with issues
with regard to the fact that the court appointed attorneys fees is on our
budget and a question as to whether excess funds should be utilized for
any additional purpose when you have in your budget a line item that might
go over. And because it's a concept of court appointed attorneys fees, which
is a whole other issue with regard to whether it should even be in our budget
and whether we should suffer an adverse consequence because of a matter
we do not control, this was delayed. What I知 hearing is there's a high probability had we proceeded earlier as we wished, we wouldn't face this issue today and these people who did excellent additional work would have been compensated. The reason we had to delay it to this point in time was due to the fact -- and I can't go into the specifics because aim annuity aadept as deborah is, but my understanding is the concept if there's money in your budget that likely to go over, you are not allowed to use excess or savings in other line items, and we're penalized because we have this community-wide obligation that is placed upon the district judges and [inaudible] district and county judges budget as an issue. And so what I知 getting is circumstances may have changed, members of the court, but these folks deserve this money as much as six months ago and may very well not be facing this issue had it not been for another factor that we did not control. Deborah can be more specific in answering.
>> but you couldn't have generated these salary savings
six months ago because 21,500 is what you have generated to date.
>> could not have, but you could reasonable anticipate
there would be additional funds by looking at the expenditure we get monthly
in your budget. No, we could not have generated this, but there could very
well have been a proposal as early as may that would have said some amount
of compensation for additional work, not necessarily the full amount you
see today in the request, but some amount of compensation could have been
done. Whether or not it would have been approved, we can't say. We know
other departments have received adjustments for additional work done by
their staff and it just places us in a predicament that has been a con constant
issue with some of the judges, myself included, with regard to this issue
of having an adverse consequence placed upon our budget and budgetary consideration
because of a county-wide obligation under the law to pay for indigent representation.
And --
>> I don't think the court is relying on that if p.b.o.
We're doing that now. The criminal judges are responsible for an area that
has exceeded a greatly increased original budget over the last four, five,
six years. Unfortunately anything related to sentencing people has been
very costly. I知 not blaming you all. In fact, I知 not blaming anybody. The question is what goes to the year end balance and what does not. Generally if we take your whole budget, we have had to add to it and not look to it for unexpected money to flow into the year ending balance.
>> in answer to that is that's a point well taken, but
I would like consideration to be made the fact our court appointed attorneys
fees in that argument and you will not see that substantial increase. It's
because court appointed attorneys fees is the factor I have had to deal
with when I played this role for the administrative judge necessary the
past and it is the thing I have really an issue with because we -- we have
a collateral consequence because of that line item being placed upon the
court administration and the judges in the criminal court. And I don't say
not identity, I would just like you all to appreciate the fact that I am
told, whether it be by others or personnel and budget, and it leads me to
believe it does have a consequence on us when we are compared to other departments.
Because judge, you made a statement that there's been an increase. My contention
is a substantial portion of any increase in the criminal korlgts budget
has been a whole lot to do with indigent representation. And the impact
of that.
>> I agree with that. Justification I see here is additional
duties to be performed that are substantially outside the scope of regular
duties. And so specifically what's that?
>> well, judge, since -- you know, with the new -- well,
overcrowding has pretty much been a [inaudible] over the past -- addressed
by the courts over the past couple of years successfully. I think we have
like a 17% decrease from '02 to '03, and it has started to creep up again
as I know you have all been made aware. And it's incumbent on the court
to constantly work on coming up with new, original initiatives to try to
address this problem. The staff, I mean the judges' staffs can tell you
I知 constantly we're having to meet, we talk, what can we do. We're always coming up with new ideas, documents about to start, we -- the jail calls frequently when they have issues with mental health offenders, high-risk inmates. And I really believe that all of these efforts have become more apparent and more concerted over the past, you know, just very recently. And we're working very hard on it and we never stop working on trying to address that issue. And I -- you know, I feel that it was hard to look at because all the way from the drug court's staff who in the past did not really spend a lot of time working on the jail population, now they prioritize the rocket docket jail population. They do a lot of jail visits out there trying to get inmates in. They've gotten in 52 inmates, I believe is what the d.a. Reported in the last couple of years. All the court staff work really hard to prioritize getting those cases, for example, in county courts that are ready for disposition to the jail call every afternoon. I mean all of this, even though the judges are the ones who actually do the disposition, it's the staff behind the scenes that are really making all of this happen.
>> let me add one --
>> any other justification for why these employees could
be eligible for temporary pay now and eligible for at least 5 partly sunny
75%, -- 5.75%, maybe more, effective October 1, which is a month and a half
away?
>> well --
>> what am I missing?
>> I think it's great that they are going to be eligible
to get that in f.y. '05 and I think I can safely say we're all very appreciative
of that is correct but the efforts have been going on all -- you know, for
a while now. And the majority of these staff have not received any compensation
for a couple of years. So this was something -- and if you look at the actual
amount is not that amount per employee. And it's for staff who have been
there over a year, it's a one-time $800 lump sum. You know, if they've been
there three months to a year, it's $400. It seems like it's a small token
of appreciation we can show them for the efforts that they've been doing
recently. But it doesn't mean we don't appreciate the efforts for '05 because
we really do.
>> judge, under that theory, I would ask does that mean
you resend all decisions made to -- rescind all decisions made to other
departments during this year? And I would suggest --
>> remember, I voted against -- that the whole department
was benefitting, I voted against. Where it looked like you were being selective,
I voted for. This is 70% of the people in the department and what percent
of those working on jail overcrowded. It's across the board basically.
>> judge, let me add one other thing before you ask the
last question, deborah was talking about how is it justified. I'll give
you one example that staff worked on. It didn't reach fruition yet and it
may not, but as an example of work for jail reduction, there was a suggestion
made and a study done within the staff to try to deal with the folks who
are waiting transition into long-term substance abuse treatment who are
on felony probation who clearly have a need, we keep them in our jail, as
you all probably know, and that's a substantial number of people each month.
The idea was to incorporate that population, remove them out of the jail
to work with the drug court -- the beauty of drug court, it is a direct
and steady monitoring and supervision of a person with a substance abuse
issue. There were meetings with court administration drug court folks, court
personnel and probation to come up with a way of identifying the population
and in fact we got a list from the jail too to identify that population
to come up with a way of studying them to try to get them out. I think it
runs 35 to 40 people a month. So that we can reduce the jail population.
It was worked on, it hasn't reached a final conclusion, and that's an effort
that you all didn't even know about and it hasn't gone into effect. It may
not. But those are efforts that someone comes up with, spends time in their
day, which is clearly above and beyond, just to deal with this crisis we
face in this county with too many people sitting in the jail. And it's more
than just trying to save tax dollars. It's a good thing to get people who
need treatment out of the jail into treatment that's available and drug
court is something that has demonstrated success. That's one program, one
idea that people have worked on that nobody knows about until I guess today
when I tell you. Now, we know it because we were involved in it. But staff
was actually involved in it. Many, many of these people were involved in
that to get it to work and hopefully it might one of these days.
>> my last point is, and I do appreciate the work of those
hard-working public servants, but I知 mindful that there were also a lot of folk there from the county attorney's office, district attorney's office, i.t.s., Numerous other departments, and so if our goal is to do the right thing for those involved in the jail overcrowding issue and we helped on that, then I think we ought to single out those individuals, tell what they did and make some sort of compensation award. I mean beyond fairness, one is that the policy was supposed to award -- reward employees who were exceptional. And I don't know that that necessarily means one or two, but I always thought it did not mean the whole department. And two, though, is that if that's the approach, then it's not quite an across the board, right? And my view is that what the temporary pay policy has become is an opportunity for the departments who can creatively generate money to do it across the board and really it mate a lot more sense to me in the spring than it does right now on the eve of a court vote to award compensation. In a rather significant amount. So I知 having problems, I guess, reconciling those two. And the other thing, though, is where I have been left with the impression that the whole department is being recommended, then I have voted against it. Where it looks like the department really went out and tried to pick and choose and in my view comply with the policy, I have supported. But there is a question of what about if you single out these individuals who were involved in this initiative, then if you don't pick up all of them, what about those who are not there. The other thing is the more of this temporary pay/salary savings we spend, the less of it is in the year ending balance. And I guess since we are making a big move to compensate rank and file employee and we've been hearing them and we know they went without for two years and 5.75 is a whole lot more than i've read about the other major employees doing this year, then I知 thinking that the circumstances have changed totally, which is why I put on the agenda today an item basically for us to terminate the policy. I was hoping to get a vote on that before coming to you all's item. Even if we vote yes to terminate, the question is when. In my view they are entwined so I wanted to go wherever the majority wants to go, but clearly what I hear let's discuss when we review the temporary pay policy is not where we have ended up in my view. That's all i'll say now.
>> judge, I appreciate your comments, I really do, and
I just want to signal to everyone I have every intention of supporting this
request because in the same way that the judge had his consistency, this
would be consistent with where I voted for temporary pay increases with
other departments. And I have been impressed not just in the matter of last
couple of weeks, but throughout the year i've gotten numerous e-mails, almost
every week, every two weeks of something going on in criminal courts where
people are stepping up to the plate and filling in and doubling up and doing
rockets and missiles and bottle rockets and whatever we're going to use
to describe extra work by everybody saying we are all in this together.
And I think it is a timing issue that judge flowers brought up that this
could have been, should have been, would have been brought to us sooner,
but we maintained that you had to know for certain you had salary savings
in excess of your budgeted salary savings. And it would have been wonderful
if we had known this back in may, but this department did not have that
kind of indication until later into the year as opposed to earlier. I do
think you are right on target though related to what do we do about this
policy from this.forward, and I would say we would not need this policy
in fiscal year '05. It ought to be away and I will make it vote to go away
related to '05 because we will have tools, financial tools for departments
to deal with exceptional performers, people doing extra duties, career ladders,
et cetera. But I知 going to focus on '04 in '04 and I think this is within -- I appreciate the fact you have lowered the amount you need, that was appropriate, and thank you for reminding me that the judges did step up to the plate and double and triple up on things to make more money available for other people within your own department. So I am going to vote for this, but when 14 comes up, I think that this temporary pay policy needs to go away effective October 1st.
>> why don't we do this then. Why don't we with 14 and
based on the effective date of it, if this is -- I mean if the effective
date is not immediately, so be it. 14 is consider and take appropriate action
on temporary pay increase policy, Travis County vowed section 10.030085.
My motion is approve this item and have a separate motion on when it's effective.
Is there a soaked to terminating the effective -- second to terminating
the effective pay policy and if so the next will be the date.
>> second.
>> discussion? The next motion will be weather we do it
today, October 1, and I知 just thinking it will be some want to terminate the policy but not now. October 1, I can live with that, whatever it is. That will pick up this item I guess if it's not immediately -- this is immediately -- that's another item.
>> there are just -- they are so entwined. Judge, I can
get there in terms of if you want to eliminate it with an effective date
of October 1, I知 there. But I get concerned about how a split vote can be interpreted because -- I would rather have it all rolled into one.
>> straightforward -- [indiscernible].
>> Karen, let's say what this thing is. It's been taken
advantage of -fplgt I don't blame them for coming in here. We did whenever
we passed 376 of them, it opened the flood gates. I doubt that we would
continue to have six or seven pages of justified lump-sum, call it whatever
you want. We know that. We set a policy, we tried to stand by it, it's been
taken advantage of. We know that and that's the reason the judges voted
against it. I voted for it each time because we voted for it, and you know
what, we didn't expect that's what would happen. My biggest question is
is where you get savings. Either somebody's budget is way beyond what it
needed to be when it was submitted because we got more dollars that could
go to ending fund balances than can I imagine. But I get it. I see what's
happened. I think that all we can do is do the right thing and take it to
the first of October. Notice that's not the -- I know that's not the motion,
but we wouldn't be getting these pages when one department said take over
80 names because some department took over 377 names and what are they going
to tell us no. Everybody wants to give people raises. Everybody knows people
are hurting. Let's stop beating around the bush. Let's do what we need to
do, get rid of this policy, know we got taken advantage of, but that's fine,
and set the continuing thing for the effective date later o I知 willing to give it just like i've given it the last month and a half. We all know what has happened to us.
>> make it effective October 1 doesn't bother me.
>> thank you.
>> I知 going to vote against October 1.
>> and I respect that.
>> mr. Davis.
>> is there any way that we can maybe [indiscernible] the
policy itself? In other words, we terminate the policy whatever the date
the court decides to make it become effective, but is there any way we can
visit that to -- I think you had said --
>> it needs a whole lot of work.
>> it needs a lot of work. I don't want to just throw it
out the window.
>> I was hoping to bury it.
>> and I know that you have voted to support some of them
and them some you haven't voted because for whatever reason you stated.
And I respect that. And everybody respects everybody's vote the way they
vote here. But if it's any way possible to maybe have it revisited so we
can look at it so we can all agree on what the policy really should be.
Because I think there are circumstances if there are savings that we can
maybe funnel those savings or the department can funnel those savings into
persons that may be outstanding, blah, blah, blah, blah. I just think we
really need to revisit the policy where we can all come up with an agreement
at some future date. I don't want to just terminate it and forget about
it. That's what I知 looking toward in the future. If we decide to terminate the deal, if that's what we decided to, the court, then of course let's revisit it at some later date. Any way possible for that, judge?
>> yes, sir, we can do that.
>> okay, I think we can do that.
>> so the motion --
>> the motion is terminate the existing policy. The next
motion will be the date.
>> I知 just making sure I understand.
>> we have a motion to terminate the policy. That's what's
up right now; is that correct?
>> right.
>> and it's been seconded by Commissioner Gomez. All in
favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> I move that the termination date be September 30, 2004,
meaning in fiscal year '05 we would not have a temporary pay increase policy.
>> I second that.
>> any discussion of that motion? All in favor? Show Commissioners
Davis, Sonleitner, Daugherty voting in favor. Voting against show Commissioner
Gomez and yours truly. Now, as to the particular request before us involving
the criminal courts and $21,500, Commissioner Sonleitner moves approval.
>> I would move approval of t-8 in the amount of 21,500,
and that all of the appropriate budget amendments and transfers and p.a.f.
Forms associated with this item be approved.
>> I second that.
>> discussion? All in favor of that motion?
>> I知 sorry. So I do have the list of the people who will be covered by this 21,000?
>> I have an extra --
>> I have a copy of that.
>> may I ask a question, deborah, the same background information
on the tasks that they will be doing for the rest of the year, September
30th, is what the justification was last week in the backup.
>> yeah.
>> the missile dockets and everything.
>> yeah.
>> the way I read it [inaudible].
>> that's correct. And also on this list, Commissioner,
we even have, like I知 listed on here but I知 not one that's going to be receive ing this. It will have a "n.a." Next to the person's name, so --
>> there were two criteria that I looked at in trying to
make a decision and one was that there were additional duties being performed.
The second one was that this was going to be covered by savings over and
above the salary savings because -- now, i've been here about 10 years,
this is my 10th budget, and we've really been after that -- that ending
fund balance. And so put as much money in there or to leave as much money
in there as possible. And so that was -- you know, that's one of the those
extremely important to me that this is savings over and above what you have
to put into the ending fund balance. And then the additional duties, of
course, are very important, but --
>> okay.
>> the motion is to approve the -- now, the backup that
we have before us, if the amount goes from 40,000 to 21,500, these numbers
aren't correct. They will be corrected?
>> on the budget adjustment?
>> these amounts are not correct, right?
>> the -- as far as the affected awarded amounts?
>> right.
>> they were reduced by approximately $1,000 because an
employee was -- I guess there is a vacant position now.
>> we went from 40,000 to 21,500. If they add all these
up, they total 21,500.
>> no, sir. The department through a vacancy that just
occurred through some other additional budgeted or identified salary savings
in the regular lineup has been identified this past week.
>> this is just related to the transfer.
>> that's right.
>> it turns out they had some things that did not require
any kind of transfer. The money is already in there. Again, as Commissioner
Gomez makes a very good point, above the budgeted salary savings.
>> that's correct.
>> you also made note of the point this would be -- this
money if we spend it today would not be in the year end balance.
>> that's correct.
>> we're dealing with the department budget. [laughter]
all in favor of the motion? Show Commissioners Gomez, Daugherty, Davis and
Sonleitner voting for. Voting against, very consistently, our own, our favorite
judge Biscoe.
>> and you are still our favorite.
I was told on the personnel matters there was an item that we overlooked.
>> oh.
>> that involved the purchasing department.
>> I thought that was just a heads up.
>> wanted to make sure that you are aware that purchasing had submitted the similar type of actions on the temporary pay increases.
>> okay. So you would -- you will be back next week with whatever backup they submit.
>> hrmd has not received backup related to those requests.
>> okay.
>> is purchasing one of the departments that has opted into the county personnel policies?
>> yes.
>> okay. Then we'll just waive delivery of whatever requests and documentation they have. That's it?
>> that's it.
>> okay.
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Last Modified:
Friday, October 28, 2005 8:25 AM