Travis County Commissioners Court
February 7, 2006
Item 13
13. DISCUSS AND TAKE APPROPRIATE ACTION ON FY 06 MEDICAL JOB FAMILY, JOB ANALYSIS PROJECT, RECOMMENDED JOB TITLES, PAY GRADES, FLSA DESIGNATIONS AND SUPPLEMENTAL PAY RATES AND PRACTICES.
>> good morning, linda smith director of human resources, with me is [indiscernible] to my right, our manager and todd osborne who is working with us, also in h.r. You might remember that during the fy '06 budget process, you took funding action as it related to health-related titles in the sheriff's office. At that time, you -- you requested that h.r.m.d. Expedite the review of all of the medical titles within Travis County and bring back to you as soon as possible the first of the year the results and recommendations. That information that particular project we have completed and we are prepared today as represented in your backup to provide for you the recommendations as it relates to titles, pay grades, flsa designations as well as supplemental pay practices. What I will say to you is that staff used the standard methodology that we traditional used in all of our other compensation projects. And recommendations to be brought before you. It was methodology that you of course approved and directed us in our first strategic plan to use, we are carrying that over in this particular three year strategic plan that we are under now. We did find however, because of the severe labor shortages within medical titles, as well as the uniqueness of the forensic titles that were included in this particular project that we expanded our markets to ensure that we were tapping into the appropriate comparables, both the primary data as well as secondary data, that we felt was necessary to fully and judicialously -- judiciously provide the back up that we would give you whatever detail that you would like on the markets that we went into. I will say to you that we expanded our county comparables within the state of Texas. We also expanded county comparables outside of the state of Texas. We did tap as we always do third party surveys. We looked at local, regional and national health markets. And that is on top of the position analysis questionnaire, the desk audits that we did, collaborative efforts with the departments. What you will find in your backup, we found that it would be helpful to separate the titles that we are bringing recommendations to you on. You will find one column that deals specifically with health related titles that are represented by the tcso titles, juvenile court, as well as three titles out of h.r. That we are now not in this report but we have a peer review outside of the h.r. Department taking a look at h.r.'s titles. The second set of titles include the medical examiner's office. So we will kind of be bouncing between them all. Before lou anne and todd get into the details of what our recommendations are, I will highlight for you the four departments that I have just done that are represented in this report. This report represents a total of 15 titles that we started with that were actually expanded to 19. Among those titles we are representing with some 59 slots, those slots of course represent individuals within Travis County and who are occupying those 19 titles. The results of our work show that there were no pay grade changes to nine of those individuals or slots that are affected. We had 47 pay upgrades that are represented here. We took 15 red lined employees to zero by moving the market and what we have resulted with is really 20 titles or 20 slots that will be green circled that represents approximately $95,000 in terms of the costs of this particular work, if we are to bring those green circled employees to minimum as we often recommend of the pay grades. I will say to you that most of the main 5,000 is represented in the juvenile court area. Not represented in tcso in general because you made that funding decision as we started fy '06. So without further ado, I will have todd and lou an pick up with their individual presentations on that as well as the forensic titles.
>> good morning, everybody. Todd [indiscernible] hrmd, I would like to direct your attention please to tab a in the backup and that deals with the medical side rather than the forensic side of the examination that we did. First of all, if you look to the left-hand side, it shows the current situation whereas on the right-hand side we have hrmd's proposed recommendations. Looking first at the current you can see that we have -- we have seven titles here and while we are recommending two minor changes to the titles, first of all the registered nurse being changed to a registered nurse 2 and physicians to a physician 2, basically we are doing this or recommending this to essentially create a series type of environment for these two classifications. Those are the only recommended changes that we have for the titles on this side of the equation. Looking now at the -- at the current section under pay grade, this shows where the -- the market was at prior to the study. So essentially for example certified nursing assistant, under pay grade it shows pay grade 7. This is essentially where the market was at when we began the process. Currently, a certified nursing assistant is considered to be in pay grade 8 due to a market differential and this is an additive that's put in place in order to help the county recruit and retain employees outside of the -- of the ordinary pay grade. In terms of what we found of the market analysis, if you compare the column that says pay grade on the left to the column that says pay grade on the right, really what we are finding here is that for the first three titles, certified nursing assistant, licensed vocational nurse and registered nurse, the market essentially did not change in terms of just pure pay grade. Essentially what was a grade 7 is now a grade 7. Et cetera. We did start to see some movement towards the upper side of the pay scale. The rn charge nurse, for example, previously the market was showing an 18 and we are now showing shifted to a 19. Health services supervisor 19 to 21. Physician assistants, nurse practitioner 21 to 23 and then physician going from a 31 to a 32. So the market did move at the top end. It did not really move at the bottom end. But I would like to keep in mind here that this is essentially base pay levels. We are talking about salaried ranges here. There were some dirchls that's we did -- differences that we did find. Particularly if you go up towards the -- the top where it says market differential. You can see what is essentially our bottom line here. Comparing the market differential pay grade on the left to the market differential pay grade on the right, we are recommending for example the certified nursing assistant go from a functional grade 8 to a functional grade 10. Licensed vocational nurse 13 to 15. Registered nurse 18 to 20. Rn charge nurse, 19 to 21. Health service to supervisor 20 to 22. Physician assistants, nurse practitioner 22 to 24. And actually the -- the physician we are not recommending a market differential for. Really what we found particularly at the bottom of the -- of the classifications, the first three certified nursing assistant --
>> [indiscernible]
>> licensed vocational nurse and registered nurse is that while the pay grades themselves did not move dramatically, there were definitely some changes in supplemental type of pay. For example, we found that the use of bonuses had increased dramatically, particularly within the private sector. We are not only talking about recruitment bonuses, also simple retention bonuses, in other words nurses being paid simply to stay within the organizations that they work in. We found for example very creative uses of employment. For example, we will have nurses that will work three days, 12 hours a day, essentially they are working 36 hours a week, but their pay would be the equivalent to 40 hours. We also found that there were hospitals allowing nurses to use computers for free, basically allowing them to take it home, use them and work at home. Overall the recommendations here I guess the bottom line is that if you look from the market difer shall pay grade on the left, to the market differential pay grade on the right, these are the recommendations for hrmd on the side.
>> I want to make sure that you understand that. The functional pay grade really reflective of the market, an actual pay grade which is what is in the hte system. Are you recommending that we use the market differential pay grade, the functional pay grade?
>> yes, ma'am.
>> great. Because -- when we put out our -- our help wanted stuff, if people see the actual one and they think oh, that's the beginning level salary, but in reality people are moved along to be third, fourth, fifth tier along the pay grade scale, we really need to show people what the minimum entry level salary is. I appreciate it. So you are going to be recommending the market differential pay grade, the last column that we have got here, that's what we are going to.
>> that's correct.
>> very good, thank you. If there are no further questions, I will move your attention to tab b.
>> [indiscernible] the market area comprised of -- because we look at Austin as the urban area, as an urban county, Travis County rather, and Austin as the hub, you have a lot of hospitals that would attract this type of staffing but to get the analogy that you use, how far outside of Travis County did you go? In other words what was the range of your market? Itself?
>> [indiscernible]
>> we have -- hold on just a minute please. Well, in addition to the local market, we also used third party data.
>> third party data?
>> yes, sir.
>> and -- and those came from the following sources, mercer, [indiscernible] wyatt.
>> [indiscernible] and dietrich associates. Essentially if a hospital was included in the area, they would be surveyed by these companies and we used the data that they obtained. Essentially we purchase that data and we use it.
>> okay.
>> it's really local, regional as well as national data that's compiled in the reports that todd cited. So the market here went really from local to national. Really.
>> okay. Thank you.
>> uh-huh.
>> I?m afraid that I jumped ahead of myself. I?m going to ask you to go back to tab a for just a minute. We did also look at shift differential, one of the key questions I got ahead of myself. I?m going to let lieu anne address that now.
>> the market does demonstrate that there's an increase in this kind of add pay. We have been paying the average of about 10% and back in October you approved that tso nursing positions be increased from 10% to 15%. So we are recommending that you continue those slots to be paid at 15%. And we are recommending that the juvenile slots be increased from 10% to 15%. Finally on tab a, we did the flas if the positions are exempt. They are non-exempt in compliance with the federal law. We did that review we are recommending no changes.
>> refuse tonight on to believe that the increase from 10 to 15% produced the desire result? Do we have reason to believe.
>> yes, in discussion with the departments, they are in agreement with that 15%.
>> do the results show that in fact that increase made a difference?
>> yes, sir, yes. We do have -- the market analysis does support the 15%.
>> but do the results also show --
>> the department would probably need to --
>> -- that the increase has made a difference.
>> have they hired people -- [multiple voices]
>> phil is tracking that, he can speak to that.
>> I can address it somewhat. Last year at this time we had 11 vacancies in the 32 positions. In the sheriff's office. I looked at this last Friday we currently have 8 vacancies, we have run with five vacancies for years and years. There has been some improvement. From last year.
>> can we just write somebody in the sheriff's office and ask them? County judge wants to know whether that increase has made a difference or whether it's too early to tell or what?
>> we will -- we will ask them that.
>> hopefully the answer is real simple, somebody can jot a two or three line paragraph that answers it.
>> okay.
>> is that -- is that not -- am I confused, is that not the answer from 11 to 8? Moving in the right direction.
>> moving in the right direction. The department definitely indicated that the funding made a big difference obviously in moving from that 11 to the number that they shared. What their plans are now I think is to focus more extensively on recruitment efforts to continue to do that to fill the remaining vacancies. So certainly we can get a paragraph from them. Bill's data is out of the hte I?m assuming, that is showing that those positions have been filled.
>> if becouple that with the recommendations out of hrmd related to going with a higher market differential pay grade, which is really where a lot of folks might be turned off because they see an entry level salary that does not reflect what a final entry level hire would be, so hopefully again we are moving in the right direction.
>> we will get the department, I had hoped that they -- mike would be here today to speak to it. But we'll talk with them and ask them to provide you with that information.
>> b?
>>
>> yes, sir, tab b is showing the forensic positions predominantly in the medical examiner's office. Again, on the left-hand side the current titles on the right the proposed titles and unlike the medical side there are a significant number of title changes and grade changes and I would like to walk you through some of those. First of all, the pathology tech and pathology assistant titles currently grades 10 and 12. In examining the marketplace, three levels typically within the accredited places that we looked at. Our recommendation is to consolidate those two titles, pathology tech, pathology assistant, make that into an autopsy tech position, slot at grade 13. Then bring in one title underneath that, which would be forensic morgue attendant, then on top of that level also a supervisor level to handle these personnel. The forensic morgue we marketed out out at grade 11, autopsy supervisor grade 16. On the investigator side of this, we currently have a medical examiner one at grade 16. Our market research indicated that is about right, that is where it is today, we are recommending no change for that one. There's an investigator 2 title presently. We do recommend maintaining that title. But in addition our research shows that -- that the accredited -- morgue environments essentially have a chief investigator at this point and so really what we are doing here is we are recommending the current medical examiner investigator 2, go to that chief investigator title. That is a reclass moving that person from a grade 18 to a 23. We would like to maintain the investigator 2 title at grade 18. And then there is also a forensic nurse, senior investigator, which is a relatively new position. That does have a market differential of grade 22. We don't recommend any changes for that at this time. Finally in the area of toxicology, as I?m sure that you are all aware the toxicology lab is now credited and therefore very comparable to the other credited labs across the state. We did notice some differences in the structures in Travis County as opposed to our market piers. While we do recommend for example that the forensic toxicologist title remain, the market has certainly moved on that and we are recommending that go from a grade 17 to a grade 19. Other lab environments typically will have a chief forensic toxicologist, that is the title that is currently in use, we are essentially much like we did in the investigator's side recommending that the current senior forensic toxicologist be classified to the chief forensic toxicologist, pay grade going from 21 to 24. Then a level in between which would be the deputy chief forensic toxicologist, this person would be the number two person in the lab, also run the quality assurance program. One of the things that was recommended in the -- in the audit that was done of the lab. And finally, a new position, a forensic toxicologist lab tech which is currently in use in many environments, these people doing the lower level analysis in addition to the cleansing and sterilization of the lab. That is about it on that side. The only market differential that is used here is for the forensic nurse senior investigator and that is really more related to the nursing skills of that position, investigator skills of that position. And I guess the only fsla change that we are recommending here would be for the medical examiner investigator 2, who we are recommending be reclassified to the chief investigator, that title going from non-exempt to an exempt position as the nature of the job changes to predominantly one of supervision.
>> okay.
>> you mentioned earlier that there are titles that we had experienced difficulty and challenges in recruiting. But what we also found is we looked into the marketplace, presented it in the report is that we are recommending that we do continue of course the use of market differentials that have been factored into our recommendations. These particular pay grades will actually go into the system as the pay grade. So the -- so the pay grades that we are showing as the market will not be into the hte system. We will literally be using the differential pay grades as the actual pay grades for those particular titles. We track those separately on a comp level, but the departments will have full use of the differential pay grades. We are also recommending that what departments may want to consider doing is using and accessing the full salary range of the pay grades that we are recommending. A part of what we find is that some of the departments will hire in at the lower end of the salary scale. They will then say well we are having trouble recruiting people. We can't retain people. But the pay scale with the full range of what we are recommending that's -- that's the market based recommendation is indeed there to move people along that pay scale as opposed to perhaps hiring them at the lower end and saying oh, we are having trouble finding people. It's just a matter of funding, of course, those titles alone -- along the range. We also have found that some departments may benefit from reclassifying some of their titles. Based on their particular needs. We found this -- that this might exist. But then some of the vacancies that we are funding within tcso, that their needs are more geared towards the r.n. Level perhaps, but at the same time their approved f.t.e.'s may be at the lower level of the scale. What they may be able to do is reclassify some of the positions then to experience more success in filling vacancies where the -- where not only the need is there, but also the labor pool exists for them to draw from. There are always opportunities to explore alternative recruitment initiatives and h.r. Goes on record today with all of the departments indicating that we're open, we're willing to use all of the resources that are available to us, electronically, throughout the networks to facilitate any recruitment initiatives that the departments may want to put in place. To date the departments are typically -- have typically managed their own recruiting in this area. As the corporate h.r. Function, there are avenues that are available to us that -- that we are more than willing to share and work with departments to access for greater success. So that, judge and Commissioners, represent the recommendations that staff has before you. Titles, pay grades, market differentials, also the supplemental pay practices that are included in both the a and b tabs that we would ask your consideration to -- to approve.
>> fiscal impact information came from where -- is that confirmed by p.b.o.?
>> p.b.o. Did receive the backup. We costed internal to h. R. And it's the 95,000 approximately tied to juvenile court titles. At this level p.b.o. Typically accepts our general figures because we are pulling right out of hte as we do the calculations on the titles and then it all gets refined as departments begin to shift dollars to try to accommodate the recommendations.
>> this -- there's no cost to actually adopt any of your recommendations. What you are -- what you are wanting to acknowledge in public is that we may be creating a small group of green circled employees.
>> uh-huh, that's right.
>> a challenge that either can be met by that department as we saw today on our personnel amendments, it took out a ton of people out of green circle. Or it may be an ongoing challenge that may have to wait until the next budget cycle. But that's -- that's the prerogative of that department in cooperation with us --
>> that's consistent with the policy and the practice of the court on all of our recommendations. Thank you for -- Commissioner for clarifying that.
>> what you see on page 5 the fiscal impact is 94 [indiscernible] without -- 94,000 [indiscernible] without benefits just ignore that --
>> just as Commissioner Sonleitner indicated is when we bring our recommendations forward we basically cost it because obviously it's important to cost that. But departments then or the tradition of the court and the policy has been to not act on it from a funding standpoint, but to have the data to move to the appropriate pay grades, then the departments have absorbed that. Then the comp allocation that the court has awarded within the -- within the budget process.
>> [indiscernible]
>> green circles. Because there are reasons that -- that departments sometimes choose to leave positions at the green circled status. But it's not a recommendation for funding. The recommendation is on the title and the pay grades and to follow the practice of the court for the department to consider funding in their budget allocations annually.
>> also equally important to point out the red lined employees, which is a huge concern for all of us, we would have 15 more red lined employees who reached the end of their pay scale, that would drop to 0. We don't have any of the forensic side, that's a big deal to those that follow the comp stuff.
>> okay. We want to take action on 13 today or next week?
>> judge, is there --
>> I am ready --
>> motion?
>> I move approval of the entirety of 13 in materials terms of the recommendation of hrmd. I want to make sure of the terms, the pay grades proposed under tab a, that we are using the last column called the market differential pay grade, that is what we are adopting.
>> correct.
>> discussion?
>> is there any significance to what we would do with this motion as to how it relates to dr. Bayardo's letter? Is that -- should we hear that before we do this? Because I don't -- I -- if we do this it's kind of like you all go home, I mean, are -- am I confused about what correlation dr. Bayardo's corresponds to us has with this?
>> I -- I believe that under robert rules of order, I believe that would be part of the discussion is any comment from the department.
>> I -- that's the reason that I asked. Before we voted.
>> that's the way that we usually do it.
>> the motion so far is to approve the recommendations as to job title changes by hrmd.
>> I see, okay.
>> okay.
>> any more discussion? All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, February 8, 2006 11:50 AM