Travis County Commissioners Court
May 10, 2005
Item 29
29, consider and take appropriate action on request for guidance on the process for setting elected officials' salaries for fiscal year 2006. Are they coming down? Because I told her I would try to reach 26 at between 10:30 and about 10:45, so let's at least give until 10:30.
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> we've got about 10 minutes to make that 10:30. We'll give them a few more minutes to get here and then we'll call that item up.
>> number 29, did I read it? It is to consider and take appropriate action on request for guidance on the process for setting elected officials' salaries for fiscal year 2006.
>> good morning. I’m with the planning and budget office. We have two memos to you on this item. The first one is a background mexican-american row that talks about some -- memo that talks about some of the research that pbo did in looking at elected officials' salaries and where they stand now, comparing them with salaries in fiscal year '02 and comparing them with salaries with some of the large urban counties and comparing them to the fy '03 advisory committee recommendations. In addition, you have a memo that outlines the salary setting calendar. As you will note, the calendar is very front end loaded. There are about six weeks of padding in there, given all the deadlines for the -- the statutory deadlines to the grievance committee work if it comes to that point. So those deadlines do have some leeway. And then we have a few options -- countless number of options that we thought you all should consider. And I can go over everything very specifically or if you want just the high points and you want to start your discussion, whatever your pleasure.
>> do we have to go this route if just a few elected officials have questions on their salary and would that be a salary grievance committee or does that necessitate this particular?
>> I think in my view it would make more sense to let the -- if we could engage the advisory committee again on specific issues. There are two or three that stand out. And then we decide whether to follow their recommendation or not. Whatever action we take, any elected official has a right to go before the salary grievance committee.
>> right.
>> but I don't know that -- I guess I would do that now and maybe after October have them look at all the elected officials if we want them to do that. But our problem right now is we need something down in preparation for this next budget cycle, which is a few months away.
>> right. And I did talk to two con strabls that had -- con constables that had brought up this issue, and they both said that they really liked the first option of reconvening the committee to look at all elected officials' salaries. What they were interested in, I believe, was having the advisory committee look at everyone because they felt that that's an objective process, it's out in the open, and it takes it away from the court and depolitical sizes it a lot. And they also felt that it was a way that if you look at everybody at once, then you can fit every salary against -- a benchmark against every other salary. And they were afraid if you wind up with ad hoc, just looking at a few offices, you wind up with some inequities among a few office salaries.
>> but we've been looking at duties performed more than anything else. And if there are additional duties added to someone's job description, then we look at that. We're looking at that. But not necessarily equalizing throughout the different markets.
>> I know in terms of with the jp's -- the jp's didn't even come to us saying they had an issue. We recognized it on our own, but because we're very unique, we are unique that all of our jp's happen to be attorneys, we chose to treat them as members of the judiciary, which some kind of comparison to other counties would never have picked up because a good portion of those other counties have jp's who are not attorneys. We are very blessed with the fact that ours really are more like the third tier of our judicial salaries. And we chose to go that route. Related to the county clerk last time, very few of the large urban counties have the county clerk also be the elections administer. They've got very high priced elections administrators, and we felt that that was compelling. At least some of the people I talked to, other than the ones that made specific points, they're willing to be treated the same as all other county employees. They don't want unrealistic numbers to come out of some committee that everybody goes, how greedy and you will never get it. They would rather say I’m willing to put myself in there along with every other county. County employees are getting three percent, and that works. It works. Particular people have issues, then they ought to bring that case to us, and if we think it compelling, we can act on it.
>> we can do it.
>> and if we don't find it compelling, it goes to our grievance panel, which can specifically listen to their argument and rule appropriately.
>> last time we convened the committee, advisory committee, it took several months to complete the work.
>> yes, it did:
>> so if we asked to look at all the elected officials, what's the likelihood of being able to complete that work by August?
>> the big issue that the advisory committee has not been convened the last two fiscal years, so we have to go out and see which of the former members are still interested in participating, where the vacancies are and then coming back to you and try and get other nominations for who we can contact in academia or the different organizations and interest groups that we wanted represented on the committee. So that would probably take even more time because while we're doing that, pbo usually goes out and collects all the data. And sometimes it's pulling treeth from some counties, but we still manage to do it. And if we can still get the doctor who ran the regression model, and he can do that pretty quickly because he's already got some experience, but it's setting up the committee and getting them together that I think would be the more time consuming part of this.
>> if we focused on elected officials that we know have issues, we have the district clerk and are the constables in the same category?
>> I believe so. What they told me was that they would rather see the committee reconvene to address every elected official's office, but whatever you chose, they just wanted to let you know what they were thinking.
>> at this time if you're looking at having a product in two to three months, we really ought to focus on the problem areas. Then maybe once we have the committee back in place and probably will need some new members, then next year, beginning in October, we give them the whole -- the elected officials in force.
>> and I think even on the jp's, we were kind of looking at is it a two-step gig. We got them up to a certain point, but if we were going to try and go to get them closer to what the associate judges are making or not, it's just -- i'd rather handle them as, bring us your information and if it's something that's compelling we certainly have been convinced of reasonable arguments, and if someone is unhappy they can take it to the grievance panel. But I don't appreciate having a whole lot of folks who didn't ask to be thrown into citizens' advisory committee, thrown into the citizens' advisory committee. And guess what everybody focuses on? Us and a whole lot of folks who are not asking for that special consideration.
>> we got an e-mail from the district clerk, the two constables and the district clerk.
>> we knew the two constables, then it would be all five.
>> they're the two that I spoke with.
>> my motion is that we attempt to reconvene the advisory committee. That we ask them to look at the district clerk's salaries, the salary of the constables and that we make clear our intention to keep them engaged at least until all elected officials are looked at, but we look at the rest of the elect #d officials after October 1 of '05, so we give a whole year or nine months.
>> judge, do we want to put a semi deadline of and we hope that they can report back to us by a month from now?
>> I’m thinking that we need to look at the membership as soon as the problems surface, which may be after the phone calls are made. We can put it back on the agenda. But I would think we need it back to be included in the preliminary budget by July 1.
>> yeah.
>> I was thinking, yeah, June 30th, because the original calendar had may 31 for the committee report. We might be able to -- I think we can aim for that and see if that's the first day. And if it slips a week we still have a little bit of time.
>> deanna and randy will be working with the committee, and indicating to them when we need the information, the reports. So I think that the intent -- I think that the court gives us guidance to reconvene and that we incorporate their recommendations in the preliminary budget, we can be in contact with the committee, giving them those precise deadlines.
>> and we can come back to you next Tuesday. I know you wanted to keep that a light day, and quickly run down what I found out in phone calls, who's coming back and what vacancies there are. Perhaps we can jump on it real quick.
>> where did we get the committee members last time? Did each member of the court want one or two?
>> I’m trying to remember.
>> I think it was recommendations.
>> there are certain positions that are identified, like someone from the league of women voters, someone from the republican party, someone from the democratic party, someone from academia or two people. So we would just call the different organizations and see if they could -- if the current person wasn't interested, then they could appoint someone new. And the tricky ones were like a former county elected official. That one was a really hard one to find because judges are really -- they still have so much business before the county and stuff. And so that was the trickiest one. And I think there's also another one, a current elected official or former elected official from -- not a county elected official.
>> we'll have it back on next week for a report back.
>> yes.
>> what if we just advise the committee members of the rough time schedule that we have in mind.
>> right.
>> it's 10:30.
>> in terms of just technicalities here, it still needs to come back to the Commissioners court about putting it in the preliminary budget. I don't believe last time we just flat out rolled their recommendations into the preliminary budget. It came back to the court and we chose to accept most of it, eliminate some of it, and that's what got into the preliminary budget. And let's say everybody got every dollar that they asked for. We're talking about a rounding error in terms of a line item in the preliminary bungt. It's not that much money. And if it doesn't make the prelimb, it can be a part of the first update in terms of --
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 11, 2005 8:12 AM