Travis County Commissioners Court
May 24, 2005
Item 26
26. Consider and take appropriate action on mgt of america's peace officer compensation study recommendations and options.
>> good morning, alicia perez, executive manager for administrative operations. Last week a report was presented to you and it was a report that was commissioned by the court concerning peace officer's pay scale. In that report, there were 14 recommendations. Your backup has a recommendation -- has the recommendations and the rationale for the recommendations. Today we are here before you to get some direction in terms of how you want to process the recommendations and request that you accept the report. There is one item that is still outstanding and that is the park rangers, work is being conducted on that now and should be ready in a couple of weeks. And a couple of weeks to bring back to you the rest of the report is complete and as is presented to you.
>> alicia, can you -- I understand there was a work session on this item. During my absence, was there any written comments or either verbal comments from any of the affected parties within the pops scenario, recommendation that we have here before us now? Was there any response from them?
>> yes, sir. There was certainly verbal response. I don't know was there written, linda?
>> I don't know. I知 asking.
>> not all were written. But throughout the entire process, Commissioner Davis, we engaged the stakeholders, rather extensively. Even when the preliminary results were released, but I don't remember receiving written comments to the final report presented last week. Did you get any, todd? You didn't receive any?
>> no.
>> the park rangers, I知 sorry, they are asking to be exclude from any action that the court might choose to take because work is in progress, but not on any of the others. The park rangers did respond.
>> but there was oral presentation, right?
>> oh, yes, yes. Officers who I guess disagreed with our approach to the study and they had wanted the average salary of -- to the law enforcement officers or the peace officers. Peace officers or law enforcement.
>> it's the law enforcement officers.
>> to be considered rather than our structural approach that we took.
>> yes, it was primarily the methodology that they were questioning and that was what they presented, of course to the court in the work session.
>> what are our various options in terms of -- because one of them certainly is that in terms of -- in terms of final receipt of the report, although we do have the one outstanding -- just so that, you know, in terms of purposes for the contract, did they fulfill their contract. We still have one item that is still left outstanding related to that. But I know that some of the associations are as we speak digesting what's in the report. And are scheduling visits with verse and sundry -- with various and sundry people to get more questions asked, whatever. I don't want to limit the dialogue is still continuing, people are asking good questions and trying to understand what it means. So there's a difference between you fulfilled the contract once we finish the park rangers versus we are rolling in all of these recommendations into some kind of a budget instruction to christian who has just walked in the room saying hi, based on this report, load up the budget this way. I知 not ready for part two. But in terms of this is I accept the report, it has been received pending the park ranger stuff. I知 there. Various and sundry folks about their input about whether certain pieces of this are taken verbatim or whether there's any tweaking.
>> I think the tweaking is I知 kind of wondering where we will go. I知 ready to accept the report which doesn't mean that they will endorse everything, just accept it. But I think the tweaking is going to take place when we -- I think we need to make the decision of whether the -- the structural study on the law enforcement officers remains as was -- as you all were directed to do it or whether we are going to make a change and look at it as the average. Because I think that will help settle some of the -- some of -- or set at least some of the parameters for the dialogue.
>> I know that we have a work session Thursday. I know we are once again.
>> that's the outstanding issue the way I see it.
>> once again talking about budget parameters on Thursday. Christian, what is our drop dead on giving you something in terms of instructions for the preparation of the preliminary budget?
>> that is important because I think if we chose to look at the average, approach of the average, the cost is going to go up. It's either going to be in the budget or it's not. And for very good reasons. I mean, let's say that it's not affordable or that we, I think we need to look down the road to make sure that we don't get into a real -- real fix for the future given the fact that we are an extension of state government and they could come back in -- in a couple of wears to -- to -- in a couple of years to do the revenue caps on us as has previously been stated, by Commissioner Sonleitner, we are all aware of that occurring because of the legislature being in session. So I think it's -- what I wanted to do is to address that issue, though, because I think it will set the parameters for any further dialogue. Either we can afford it in the future or we cannot afford it in the future. So christian what you -- what you present to us is really important to me. Because it will help me continue the dialogues.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...it is early. Things are still fluid. We typically know that expenditures change, both with respect to the projection of those expenditures as well as during the year, and we also know that revenue tends -- revenue estimates tend to be conservative at the front end so that we don't have surprises at the back end. This is not an inconsequential amount of money that is being discussed, and on Thursday you will see the whole picture and you will see the implications of moving in one direction or another with respect to this particular question of structural issues on pops.
>> it kind of tells me that we're not prepared to make any definite decisions today. We shouldn't until we hear of what you have to report on Thursday. And so we still have a little more time, don't we, before we make these decisions?
>> [inaudible - no mic]. In that document it is noted the ones that have fiscal impact. From policy decisions, some have fiscal impact. There has been preliminary work done on the fiscal impact. It is not complete because of differential -- shift differential. And then parks ranger. We have some information on the cost.
>> let me ask you this: the law enforcement officers raised the issue of the average salary versus salary structure. They have a consultant who has done some work already. Why don't we get with them, see what their explanation is, try to do the average salary and see where we end up. Now, I believe I recall them telling me that the average salary would actually make their salaries higher and more in course with a.p.d. So if it's -- I never thought about it a whole lot, that when they raised it, I guess my first question was why not look at that? Why not have both pieces of information? I知 thinking that if they have done much of the work already, it should not be ch additional work -- much additional work. That is outstanding as well as the park rangers. And with the -- that we're not addressing those, why don't we accept the rest of the report, indicate our intention in a couple, three weeks to look at the specific recommendations and to respond to them.
>> and then we will have real numbers to work with, compare instead of guessing what the number is.
>> our goal was to try to put to rest some of the outstanding issues. And those seemed to be the biggest two right now. Then it wouldn't hurt us to have a little bit more time to mull over the supporting information and the recommendations that we have received. So we gave ourselves a couple of weeks to do that and plan to land on the park ranger's recommendation as well as the average salary info for law enforcement. Those are the best directions today, and to accept the rest of the report.
>> so just in terms of clarification, the consultant has already completed their average salary work? Is that what I知 understanding?
>> I don't know what I would use completed. I think I said had done much of of it. And I had not chatted with the consultant. We all heard him in court, but I did chat with one of the officials -- one of the offices of the law enforcement association. Clearly they have done some work because he had numbers. So I知 thinking that if they have done that work, maybe it's just a matter of us verifying their facts and we need to augment those, and let's do it. We have the actual salaries information if we had the names of the officers, right?
>> yes.
>> and that's great because that was information that as we had the focus group sessions and we were dialoguing with them, we were wanting to get that kind of information so that we could check that against the information that we had, so this creates an opportunity for us to do that.
>> and I haven't chatted with them with making themselves available, but it seems to me if that consultant has already done much of the work, then he already has the facts and calculations, the rest of them, it's just a matter of us looking at it and find outing whether we need to augment it, verify that and find solutions. We meaning y'all.
>> would you want to have the same information for all the titles, law enforcement, corrections, constables, investigators?
>> I thought it was a law enforcement issue. Nobody else raised it.
>> I have not had my meeting yet with the corrections folks. They cancelled yesterday. So I have not talked to them.
>> the point would be if you use a methodology for one group, it would be appropriate, fair and standard to use it for all the groups.
>> here is why I dispute that strategy. One is that part of why this makes sense to me is we were led to believe that they had retained their own consultant who had done much of the work. One. Two is that based on what they told me, the consultant's results, it will help them get more pay. If it will, they will get less. If corrections see that, do they want the same result? If so, we can apply the same percentage and give it to them. My guess is they won't do that, though. So I don't know where this will take us. The reason it's simple is they have their own consultant who has done the work. And I知 suggesting let's look at that and see if we agree with it, whether we need to augment that data, whether we reached the same conclusions and then see where it takes us and share that with corrections if we want to bring corrections into it. I知 left with the impression that if this pans out, as I think it will, and as the law enforcement officers told me, corrections won't want any part of it.
>> judge, what I知 trying to figure out is where -- and again, I don't have any law enforcement meeting until Thursday, but this seems to be a question of whether this pops under item number 12, which is saying that basically the pops scale as it is, with the exception of the non-sheriff job classification, there need not be any major adjustment of the scale. The scale is correct. But certainly these issues are not at all tied to number 1, 2 and 3, which I think are humongous in terms of policy decisions, and that has to do with parity within a.p.d., tying compensation to a.p.d. And parity between corrections, patrol and constables.
>> I知 not -- [ inaudible ].
>> I think that it is tied and I need to have some really good discussions with them of is this really focusing in on number 12, which has to do with the scale itself or what. And I haven't had my conversations with them yet as to where this is all leading.
>> but they raise an important fact that I think we ought to answer, and that was in their position, a more accurate determination would be the actual salary, not the salary structure. And I知 just suggesting when we get the facts -- that we get the facts on both. It may end up that we use the salary structure anyway, so I知 not making that determination. But they raised the fact issue and it's easy to get the facts from law enforcement if we take them at their word that they have a consultant on board who has done much of the work already. If that is not true, then my guess is our consultant's position would be we have done our work, we want additional compensation to do this. And if you do that for 200 plus law enforcement officers and then you throw in 800 plus corrections officers, I知 thinking that the compensation requirement will be significant.
>> I need to make sure I understand what everybody's issues are about what using one versus the other. Because this was talked about relating to the average salary. The average salary can be skewed to the positive and can be skewed to the negative. But if all of a sudden you have a huge overturning of your workforce, let's say Williamson county, and everybody has to start in at the lower level, all of a sudden you will lower the average pay in Williamson county simply because you have a lot of people starting at the very beginning of the salary structure. That doesn't necessarily accurately reflect what people ought to be making or what the market is. That just is what it is related to that. On the converse, you can have a structure where people are very senior, nobody's leaving until they retire, they love it here, and you've got a lot of salaries at the other end, and that also skews when you have a lot of folks at the upper end and people coming in at entry level because that's the way it has to be, and that also is skewing exactly what it is that it takes to hire and keep good people. The number will be much higher, but the reality is when you get hired in it will be at that entry level that is established by a different kind of a market. So I just need to understand why that's a relevant point, and I look forward to my discussions with law enforcement and corrections and constables and anybody else that wants to keep talking to me.
>> it may well be that in the end it's not that relevant at all. It's just hard to make that determination now. And I think making that determination without trying to verify their consultant's work is premature. I don't see us as blowing it off.
>> no, I don't want to blow it off.
>> and I don't know that we have enough facts to say they're mistaken. There seems to be two different approaches. And our consultant said we've gave you some average salary information, but we used some more more salary structure data. And for me it was concepts of first impression. But since they were raised, well, let's look at both of them and see where they take us.
>> I think it would be useful too because they also say that they shouldn't be compared -- our law enforcement officers say they shouldn't be compared with other markets because they don't lose people to other markets. If they lose people, they're losing them to a.p.d. And so that's -- that was the other reason why their consultant was -- the work that their consultants were doing was important to us. So if we look at that data and we look at their work, maybe we can --
>> [overlapping speakers].
>> but that was part of the backup that you can add to the comparison.
>> we can meet with their consultant, see what information he has, maybe take a sampling of some of our law enforcement job titles and do a comparison data so you can at least see and go into the different methodology. I guess the question would be do you want that back on a Tuesday? And you said three weeks?
>> probably, yeah.
>> I actually said two, but if three is better, that's good.
>> we want to really look at the data that pbo has for us and look at it very seriously because I think we need to plan very well.
>> and hopefully we will have all the information about the park rangers. There's a pretty important piece here related and it's a policy decision about where they land. And if they land either way, what should their ranges be, whether they are pops or non-pops. That's going to be very important.
>> and that would be the 14th, just to confirm?
>> yeah.
>> because I think affordability is very, very important. And then also the financial accounting in the future is very important.
>> now, we see fiscal impact noted here in several places. We do not have in parenthesis the amount of the fiscal impact. So I guess the question is whether there is fiscal impact in our three weeks report back, will we have specific numbers?
>> you have a preliminary -- you have a preliminary. What you -- and I say preliminary because there is a couple of numbers that will change or not included. You do not have a shift differential. We would have to work with the sheriff to get an estimate if you accepted that information to institute a shift differential. And ask him what do you think that would be in accordance with how you define the shifts and the suggested amount by the consultant and how many people, and just figure out what that number should be. Secondly you have a number there for park rangers, which may change with the actual results coming in, so that's why that's preliminary.
>> are these your numbers?
>> yes, they are. This is basically my best understanding of the mgt recommendation for fy '06 only. There is no pricing or suggestion that we could price beyond that year because, frankly, that recommendation is tied to indexes that may be hard to predict right now.
>> okay.
>> did we spend $50,000 on this deal? What was the cost of this?
>> the earmark was 50, but the actual was half of that, 25,000.
>> so we've only spent $25,000 on it?
>> yes.
>> will that be the total by the time we finish it?
>> yes. It's expected that it would with the introduction going back into working with the other consultants, I知 not sure if mgt would -- I don't know if they considered their work complete or if they would consider looking at the other consultant's work an additional task that they would be charged for. I don't know. It would be very reasonable if there is a cost at all Commissioner.
>> so we don't have the ability in-house to look at -- I知 missing something here. We've got pbo, we've got people who have calculators. We know how to divide, we know how to do the figures. If somebody just says we want to see the difference between salary averaging versus structure, then I think that we can do that. Now, if we want to run it by somebody that's a so-called expert, then I guess let's talk about that. I don't know why we would. My big concern on this thing is let's go have one thousand, 1100 people no happier today than we were when we started it. And I don't know who to believe. You know, y'all get me in a room, I believe you when you say no, we had all these focus groups and all these things and everybody knew what we were going to do. I do lunches, I do meeting under trees, I do anywhere I get asked to come to. And all of a sudden, no, we ask these questions and those weren't answered. No, these weren't part of it. The point of the matter is that, by gosh, I can't believe that we can go through this -- I don't need a thousand, 1100 people still upset. If it's just a matter of you're not going to keep people happy unless when you take number one and number one drives everything. And because law enforcement, you know that they are not going to let up on we don't need the gap to get too far with a.p.d. Because unfortunately the barometer for our law enforcement people is a.p.d., whether we want to accept it or not. Now, I think that we can show numbers and the statistics and everything that i've read from our folks is that we don't have an exodus issue with law enforcement. I think that you can make a point and listen and look at the statistics from corrections and see that there are some issues there. Again, I see y'all raise eyebrows or roll your eyes and I can get with somebody else and they'll go, what about 60, what about 70? And I don't -- I知 at a disadvantage. I think all of us are at a disadvantage. It's almost like get everybody in the room and when somebody makes a comment, say what don't you agree with that? What statistic are you using that this person is not going to get me in another meeting and say no, that's not accurate, that's not real. The point of the matter is that you've got a large, very important workforce in this community that needs to be happy. Now, as I told them, I said you can cross the line with getting us to the point where we can make you so happy that you just want to dance everybody. I mean, we might not be able to do that, but what we're trying to get to is a spot where if you put on a uniform, we want you -- we want you to enjoy putting it the uniform and coming and doing your job. So what does it take? And it's always pay, retirement, overtime, and then lack of personnel. So somebody is missing something somewhere. And I don't know who it is that I need to go to to say let's sit down and let's make sure that these people are happy. I mean, I think that there will quom a time where you will say we've given you all we can, Commissioner, you just might not be able to make people as happy as what we want to be. But it is just disturbing to me that we will go through this and still have the concerns that we're going to go through that we will start with budgeting because we're going to have to -- all of us are going to have the meetings about why this is not taken care of. Obviously some people on here are very happy. I mean, if you move them from this to that, no question about it. And the truth of the matter is maybe they need to be moved as well, but I would hope that between now and whenever we're going to get back in the next three weeks that you all really could sit down with these folks and make sure that these issues that you say that you have, we're willing to address them and we're willing to try to get everybody on the same song sheet with regards to what the issues are. But I have had the corrections meeting, Commissioner Sonleitner, and they're not -- and they're not any happier. The first question I had is we had the work session, le was there, but y'all weren't. So I think everybody assumed that y'all were okay. Well, no, we weren't okay and we didn't know that that was going to -- that we were going to get to have an audience or we were going to get to weigh in on that. For the life of me, I don't know why this group hasn't been able to say, okay, here are the issues, now, bring up averaging versus structure, if that's what you're going to try to get us on, because let's face it, everybody knows that people at the table can benefit themselves, and that's natural. And quite frankly, that's what I want them to do because I want them to get to point that they say we know that we can only ask so much. But it's not a very comforting feeling for me to know that we've still got a thousand, 1100 folks that aren't happy with where we are. And maybe it is just $25,000 versus the 50, but I would -- I知 not dogging the consultant because if the questions weren't asked, if somebody didn't understand what people were really asking and how those things could be answered, it's be be fulgdzing to me, but i've been be fuddled before.
>> this is the list of the highest law enforcement agencies in Texas, cities and counties.
>> this is the average number from minimum to maximum?
>> yes.
>> move that we receive the consultant's report with the understanding that additional work will be done on the park rangers and the average salary retention for law enforcement.
>> second.
>> as soon as the results are available on the average salary information for law enforcement, let's share that with the corrections officers association so they will see it.
>> we will meet with the consultant and see how much information there is available and then share that -- just let the court know if there is more work to be done or we can take a sampling so that we can discuss not only the methodology, but the result of a sample and then see how you want us to go on.
>> I wouldn't waste four or five days with us. I would see what's there and act on it.
>> and there is back on our agenda on the 14th, judge?
>> that's what I知 hearing. Three weeks is enough?
>> that way we will for sure get the results on the park rangers. And the seventh is becoming very crowded.
>> any more discussion of the motion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you very much. Thank you, mr. Consultant. I forget your name.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, May 25, 2005 7:48 AM