Travis County Commissioners Court
July 19, 2005
Item 23
23. Consider and take appropriate action on request to conduct abbreviated market salary survey for certain employees in the transportation and natural resources department, including road maintenance workers and equipment operators. It's those two categories that I recall from the public hearing, joe, that you suggested that maybe we want to add a couple of other positions to that -- to that short list?
>> yes, I think we really need to be talking about the entire family because I think that you have got people and facilities and parks or also in the same family and whereas you -- I think that you have heard from all of those individuals at the public hearing and I think quite frankly the -- when you study the family, study those two positions, you are probably looking at the same issue with the rest of the family.
>> I had in mind doing something that we could act on during this budget process, can we do all of that work?
>> judge, we also have pending the administrative family, which was also requested by the court as next in line after we did its. And the -- the sheriff's officer association, that was another request by the court. So -- so it's -- it's a matter of -- of which -- which family.
>> which first.
>> that imply that's we cannot do both.
>> yes, sir, that's correct.
>> not in this time period. Not between now and the budget.
>> how much can t.n.r. Assist with its own gathering? How much of a hunter and a gatherer can you be in terms of --
>> I would love to be the fox in the hen house, but I知 not sure that you would let me do that.
>> I have got a stack of information that the union collected about those two jobs from they say the governmental entities that were mentioned by the employees as well as aisd. Both would be similar positions. What I had in mind was why don't we do this then, let's do this for both of them. If we can do an abbreviated one maybe that falls short of your comprehensive expert, market salary survey. We think it's reliable, we take it. If we don't think it's reliable, let's say we have done the best we can, let's kick it over to next year. This is one of those deals where if the contrast, the difference between what we pay and what surrounding jurisdictions pay the same workers for the same work is as stark as -- as the employees said, clearly we ought to do something, if we don't completely fix it. Some assistance my get is would be appreciated.
>> let me say I am willing to use parents of my budget to supplement h.r.'s staff if they need that, if they need to hire an outside expert to do that. And of course i've got some h. R. Folks on staff, but then there is perhaps a conflict of interest there. But just so linda knows, I know she's got limited resources just like I do. So if it helps, I知 willing to help pay for it.
>> would there be a conflict if joe's people say helped to pull together relevant information and then your shop basically proceed with the analysis necessary to result in recommendations?
>> let me make sure that I知 understanding the scope that you are speaking of. You mentioned two titles when we -- when we first started discussing and then there was some mention of the entire job family. So I guess my question before responding to that is are you speaking of the titles that were identified in the posting or the entire families?
>> well, when I got wind that joe thought it ought to be much broader, I changed the item language to say to be broader, but then I said including the specific two that I had in mind.
>> okay.
>> so joe you think it should be broader than the two I listed there, and you think what others should be added?
>> I think at least the park maintenance worker, the park maintenance worker, senior, I don't know if it was your intent to put the road maintenance supervisor in the same -- you had two job titles. I think yours was the road maintenance and the equipment operator.
>> yeah, heavy equipment operator.
>> what's the difference between a supervisor and the -- and the --
>> just in the same family. So you ends up in a compression issue if you don't deal with the others.
>> is that like a 10% differential?
>> I don't know.
>> it would be easy to find out what the pay increase, what the differential is now and then if there's an increase of the --
>> there's a one point difference between the senior levels positions and the basic title. As an example the role of maintains worker, maintenance worker senior is a pay grade, what is it? 8. Then the senior is a 9.
>> that's a --
>> about a 7% differential between --
>> what if we retain the differential.
>> yeah, you could do that.
>> being respectful of the differential that we would not allow the compression.
>> basically just take care of the --
>> well, that -- we take no action on the lower one, we don't take an action on the other one. If we increase the lower one by 12 speakers, whatever the differential is, that would be logical. It may not be -- makes sense to me. It would enable us to really -- really reduce the time necessary to get the work done right.
>> there is a question of fairness. Park maintenance workers, park supervisors and park maintenance workers it's the same thing as facilities maintenance workers. So the message is come to the Commissioners court and lobby. For your jobs to be looked at and that's the way that you get on faster.
>> actually, I would --
>> and so it is --
>> that is true I would include that as parts of the deal. I think that is -- that's -- for the family, I do believe facilities positions are affected by the market just like the parks and road maintenance, that's why it's difficult for me to take one position without looking at the related positions. But I am willing to put in whatever work is necessary to take care of all of that. And I think probably with your help we could do that for facilities as well.
>> you see that was easier than you thought.
>> I am happy to include that.
>> this court would be the last to recommend promoting unfairness.
>> that doesn't mean that --
>> now we have three departments.
>> [indiscernible]
>> before another department hears this, only those three departments will be considered, right?
>> that doesn't middle eastern that the -- doesn't mean that the --
>> yes, it does. This would go before the administrative family.
>> the administrative family that's the next thing in line, though.
>> no, sir, the direction is to do one or the other because of the --
>> now, that was the request.
>> well -- [multiple voices]
>> all of this -- trying to figure out how to get both of them done.
>> both the administrative family and --
>> don't -- [multiple voices]
>> of September?
>> huh-uh.
>> because even with these two families, we are talking about 40 jobs, if we are talking about the entire family that represents 300 and -- 370 some odd slots. So if we take the facilities, if we take t.n.r. --
>> how many are in in the administrative family?
>> approximately 700? About 700 in administrative.
>> one option that does exist is that we have consulted with departments who are concerned about recruitment and retention and market issues. We have proposed the departments that they make salary adjustments that in -- in the absence of -- of perhaps a market study, we are falling kind of in between the years that the studies would have been done, that -- that departments are opting to use a part of their compensation allocation to make those salary adjustments, pending -- pending then full review of job families, perhaps, as we roll into a new fiscal year. But that always remains an option to complete this particular task between now and -- I would say within two or three weeks, if you were speaking of a couple of titles, I would say absolutely we can do a couple of titles and run with it. But if we are talking about the full job family, and in all fairness to the staff and what we have on our platter, I mean, a full family would be very difficult to complete between now and three weeks out within the budget process.
>> if I were --
>> talking about both families?
>> yes, both families, administrative.
>> no, no, no, I知 only speaking at this point to those that the facilities equipment maintenance as well as the tech skill trades.
>> 700 positions for the administrative support, yes.
>> judge, I知 willing to -- I understand linda's position and her limited resources, I知 willing to finance the study out of my own budget if that's necessary for t.n.r.'s positions. A minute ago I thought that you wouldn't help --
>> you know what. I知 willing to commit before my resources, so if alicia wants to use part of her budget to finance hers, that's great, too.
>> what I would o.c.a. That if that is the case, we can facilitate the outsourcing of that work. It's just doing it internally that would be difficult.
>> would you be able to do the administrative family if we outsource that part.
>> not between now and the end of the fiscal year, no.
>> the administrative family won't get done anyway.
>> no, not before the end of this fiscal year. That is something that at this point we were hoping to be able to, you had asked us to consider completing that before the end of the fiscal year. With the charges that we have now to complete, descriptions and all, we don't see ourselves fitting that in.
>> you are not putting anything in front administrative families. People watching say I thought we were the next one. You are saying regardless you really don't have the ability to do that. The workload that you all have, you are just going to -- it's going to take you the rest of the year to do what you have told us that you were going to have on your plate at the time.
>> we did not have this other begin the work on that.
>> right. [multiple voices]
>> from the court to say both of them at the same time, this is a priority that we will focus on this and not start the administrative family until this is complete.
>> the administrative family was the next --
>> it's in the hopper.
>> hold on. [multiple voices]
>> vacancy rate, isn't that crucial to address? I mean, if we don't fill that -- don't -- how are we going to get the bond projects done?
>> many times that's the way of course decision, policy decisions -- [speaker interrupted -- multiple voices] maybe we don't need to have a bond election right now.
>> -- are made based on the recruitment and retention challenges as to which families get --
>> we never were going to finish could we have gotten started on the admin family, sure. The idea that we were going to somehow do recommendations for the budget process anyway wasn't going to happen. Basically if you have some extra time, that would be the next project. But I don't think I ever thought that you were going to have the extra time, but even if you did, you certainly weren't going to finish it. You were going to get a leg up on '06. Who exactly is being discussed here today. I知 hearing all of these different variations of what's going on. What t.n.r. Recommended, what we are hearing is the data -- equipment operators and a few other things that we said we were going to basically look at and address. How we are going to address those, I think we need to do it. But as far as administrative family, that was the next thing in the hopper that we said that you agreed on, we agreed on that we supposedly going to be looked at after you finished with the its stuff. Are we rescinding, going backwards as not going to do that as next thing in the hopper. If the court wants to change their mind on that, the court ought to come up --
>> we are not posted to do that. I agree with Commissioner Davis. Our vote really was for that to be next, you saying that being next really means the first part of next fiscal year.
>> how can anything else be addressed then if that's going to take the back seat to everything else, that in my mind is putting everything ahead of what you are supposedly doing on this other.
>> my motion is to take joe up on the use of transportation and natural resources dollars and the offer of joe's human resources personnel to the extent possible to assist without compromising his study, and hrmd dedicating whatever is necessary to -- if retained -- we are talking about outside assistance, right? If retained outside assistance to get this done to look at the three -- was it three groups that we mentioned? That parks and road and bridge, have -- I have waited for alicia to chip in on the study here for facilities.
>> I think when they do parks maintenance, I mean, that's what we did last time we looked at -- the building --
>> if alicia has a little money she can put that in, too.
>> [indiscernible] [multiple voices]
>> what we are looking at Commissioner Davis is a way to sort of get this done without adversely affecting our commitment to the administrative family.
>> [indiscernible]
>> yeah. They are privatizing this.
>> so it will require a little coordination by hrmd to bring in outside help to get this done for us.
>> how do we get relief to the heavy equipment operators.
>> that's it.
>> get outside help basically with the study.
>> in other words in time for this coming fiscal year budget.
>> hopefully.
>> yeah.
>> and that ought to free up the people who would be working under administrative study keep on keeping on.
>> all right. All right. Well, that's --
>> I知 happy to second.
>> not yet. That's a long motion, did we get all of that, melissa.
>> let me ask. Until you get your second -- you got your second.
>>
>> [one moment please for change in captioners]
>>
>> ...we're going to get this out sourced.
>> we can get outside people to do the work.
>> so our response is going to be we're not taking our people doing it, a department has pope kwraeutd money and we are outsourcing this, so technically yes, you are getting jumped in front of but it's because you are getting it paid for.
>> and facilities and t.n.r. And parks are using their funds to help get this done.
>> it's not taking away from the h.r. Time. They are not jumping in front on the h.r. Time.
>> so we can just --.
>> just a little bit and it will look good.
>> what you are saying, I want to make sure this is perfectly clear with everybody listening, is that you will -- hold on, Commissioner. Where did he go? Is that this -- linda, both -- alicia, you and linda, what y'all are saying is you don't have enough time to finish out the survey for the administrative family before fiscal year '06 coming up.
>> that is correct.
>> is that what you are saying?
>> that's correct.
>> I want everybody to hear that. All right. All right. Thank you.
>> craig?
>> a perfect motion. I appreciate the support. I知 going to offer as part of that outsourcing process that our union be involved at no cost to the county. Oftentimes this is much art as science that goes into these market studies and I would appreciate being a part of that process so when we come forward, we can come forward understanding and in support of whatever recommendations comes to the court.
>> sounds good to me.
>> and anyone else who wants to volunteer their efforts, I would say your help is also appreciated. Thank you for the offer.
>> any more discussion? Are we together on it? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote. Thank you all very much.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, July 20, 2005 11:18 AM