Travis County Commissioners Court
April 19, 2005
Item 28
28. Consider and take appropriate action on request for approval of dues deduction of afscme members. And we do have afscme representatives here in case we have questions. And as far as we know the item is okay with -- with this one? The auditor is okay with this one.
>> yeah, this is a confusing issue. More confusing than it needs to be. The law just says that the Commissioners court has to approve things that are deducted from paychecks. Number two the employee has to approve the dollar amount that's deducted from his paycheck. We're fine with that.
>> okay.
>> so you all approve it and employees sign-off on it.
>> move approval.
>> second.
>> any more discussion?
>> may I get a clarification, judge? What afscme requesting, is it merely dues or are they asking for something different? I’m not sure that I understood from the request from brent powell what is being requested. You are already having dues being --
>> correct. I think this is under five of us saying this is an item that we have determined serves a public purpose.
>> okay. Thanks for that clarification.
>> because we are already there --
>> right. So this is a second type of deduction.
>> for public purpose.
>> okay. That is for an -- afscme is a -- is maybe you ought to explain that to me because I couldn't understand what afscme people was, because I haven't been doing that. I don't know what that is.
>> carol?
>> come on up, carol.
>> afscme members, those are due goes paying members -- dues paying member was my understanding of that.
>> yes.
>> but it's another deduction of our afsme members.
>> it is an additional -- additional dues? Or is it different?
>> this is for our people fund which is our political action fund. Which all of the people have to be afscme dues paying member in order to have that additional dues taken out.
>> the court can consider this a valid public purpose it can move forward.
>> this is from a -- a quick for susan, are we setting up a separate line item or basically giving it permission to be blended so carol and folks simply give you the number of what's been authorized and we leave it to them to separate out at their place what goes to what category?
>> we can do whatever works for the auditor to meet the requirement of the law. We have no problem with that.
>> as long as your vote is that they can deduct dues and deduct contributions to a political action committee, if you approve that and the employee approves what that dollar amount is, then we can deduct from their paycheck. But if you -- I don't even know what the dues are carol, but let's say they are $15, now this brings it to 35, they need to change, the employees need to authorize that change. We would not just start deducting 35. Instead of 15.
>> the clarification that I’m trying to get it you are not going to have in terms of somebody's paycheck dues, 15, afscme people another 20. Is it going to be a blended one line item amount so they basically can handle it in one check -- [multiple voices] it's kind of like keeping the county out of the other business of it and simply saying how do we accommodate the needs of our employees, but stay out of the accounting on it.
>> okay. I understand what you are saying. I guess the way that I’m going to respond to that is whatever the auditor says that we need to do we are going to do it.
>> I just don't know the answer to that.
>> I don't either.
>> okay.
>> thank you, carol.
>> all in favor? That was motioned and seconded, right? That passes by unanimous vote. Anything -- any clarification that's we need to make we would be happy to do that.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, April 20, 2005 10:34 AM