Travis County Commissioners Court
March 20, 2007
Item 14
Due to technical difficulties some caption files may be incomplete.
Action on the following, a, remaining issues associated with temporary employees and participation in the Texas county and district retirement system for compliance with Texas government code chapter 842. And 14-b is to authorize revision of all personnel policies, procedures and guidelines impacted by Texas government code chapter 842 revisions.
>> we have been before the court for the past several weeks bringing matters related to Travis County coming into compliance with house bill 633, which of course is the code as we referenced here in the agenda, which is the Texas government code chapter 842. My attorney has scwoind me. You had asked when we were here before that a downlt be prepared to communicate the effects of this particular action of the court on the employees who will be working in excess of six months. My understanding is that that document has been transmitted into the court and prepared by barbara wilson, the county attorney. And barbara, I suppose you want to respond to questions or walk through it?
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. That, we have actually begun working with the auditor's office to begin moving forward with implementation and guidelines and parameters based on the actions you took last week. We're prepared, geared up, ready to roll with it and expect that probably over the next week or within the next week departments will be receiving their communications from a charge or slot list. Although they've begun workogit, they will receive official communications from us to begin implementation to be effective may 1 as you voted on last week. We're prepared as your administrators of this to move forward. And the information that the county attorney will share today will perhaps give us more information to communicate.
>> do you want me to go through it? I tried to make it plain enough that quawl wouldn't have any questions.
>> it does had an ira that you would put money into, be you would have that same 10% penalty fee. If you were to take the money that you had in the -- if you were no longer an employee and you took be the money that you had in the retime system and rolled it over into an ira, that would give you some other options for early withdrawal that I'm not familiar enough with to give you details on, but I know that there is a provision that if you have extraordinary emergency medical expenses that you cannot meet any other way, then I think you can take it out of an eye ra without a spent. So if you pull it out of an ira for catastrophic medical expenses, you would avoid the 10 percent penalty, but I think most of us would rather pay the penalty than have catastrophic medical problems.
>> withholding of the 20% from or it is forfeited?
>> actually, they take out a 20% -- if you had $100 and they take out 20%, when you go to pay your income taxes, you're going to have to determine based on your tax rate how much tax you would pay on that $100. If you're at the low rate, then it would be -- well, if you were at the low enough rate you would pay no tax and get it all back as a refund. If you were at the 15% rate you would get five dollars back and if you were at the 30% rate you would still have to pay 10 dlampltz.
>> but be taxed on the 100 and the 80 is like -- when you get your paycheck you don't get all of the monies that you're paid, you have withholding tax. That 20% is the withholding that they're taking out to government has a portion of the taxes you're going to have to pay. You don't pay in addition to that 20% unless you owe at a greater rate than the 20% rate. That -- I may be wrong on this because I didn't go through this mechanical aspect of it this thoroughly. It is my belief that when you take your money out, you will get $80. When it comes time to file your income tax return, you will have to pay whatever your tax rate said you should pay on the $100 as your income tax, if it's your regular income tax rate plus withdrawing it before you're 59 and a half. So if the amount you would have to pay is a 15% rate, then you would have to pay 25%, but it doesn't mean that that 10% penalty comes out initially.
>> I see.
>> I don't think it does. I may be wrong on that, though.
>> will everybody get a copy of this?
>> we're certainly prepared to do just that. And certainly any questions that the employees might would have, tcdrs we have of course a representative there that they can either call directly or certainly through the hr department we would respond to any inquiries that come into our office.
>> who is our memorandum simplifier at the county? We need this information to go out in simpler language to the rank and file, I think. This is a whole lot of information. I question whether all of it is that important. And if our goal is for the rank and file to understand it, which it ought to be, then our challenge I think is to pull the essential information out of here, simplify the language and give it to them.
>> I'm certainly willing to take a stab on the it in consultation with member of the team that worked with us. This information will serve as the basis for doing that, but I'm happy to work with barbara and try to get something out.
>> would this go to all employees or just temporary employees.
>> they would go to those that are transitioning to the six-month period.
>> so those who might be affected by the policy changes.
>>
>> there were 220 geese that went from -- employees that went from temporary to having to pay starting may 1st, I guess it was transition for the -- into the retirement system. We would send it to those as an initial information piece. Those employees in the next year, just like you got yours last week, would get the little booklet that is sent out with all the data on the retirement system. We should have all gotten that last week.
>> okay. So if I were a temporary employee, as of two weeks ago I would have been one of about 3,000.
>> that's correct.
>> so how am I to know whether this affects me or not.
>> have we begun to identify those temp employees that would be affected by this? Since we were reporting over the last few weeks and speaking with departments, they've found that in adjusting their managing of their temp employees that many of them are falling into less than six months. So those that will remain here, the departments are connecting with those employees to communicate their new status.
>> so that's at the department level?
>> that is at the department level, yes.
>> those who need additional information should contact?
>> they should contact hr or they should -- could also contact the tcdrs representative. I would put hr as a contact.
>> I would put a name and phone number.
>> and I may add, judge, I know there's been concern about that group moving into this above six-month category. Some preliminary feedback that we've received from departments suggest that those individuals are happy to have the retirement taken out or to participate in the retirement program. So it's not all a negative kind of effect. Of course, it will affect people differently in term of attitude, be but in general we've got not enany concerns or complaints about that.
>> and the older you get, the happier you are.
>> it's a savings account. Unfortunately it's kind after forced savings account, which unfortunately most people --
>> the older you get, the more you appreciate that.
>> some people that's the best way to do it.
>> so is this intended to be b or is this just a?
>> b is intended to be just your procedures and make all of the changes and then bring them back to you once they're identified and written out.
>> this is a then.
>> move approval o b is direction to make the policy changes, bring those back to the court for were we gk into an designation or is that for another date?
>> we would probably incorporate that into the policy; however, a draft definition that we do have if you care to hear that at this time, is that it would be a person who is providing services to Travis County to fulfill an educational requirement related to the completion of a degree program at an educational institution or as a requirement for qualification for a professional license. So what we would do is incorporate a definition -- this definition into the policies as we bring them back. And you would still have a chance to take a look at this again to determine if you will want this type definition.
>> and those individuals would fit into the project worker category or the temporary worker category?
>> they would fit into the temporary employee category with a provision, though, that their term of relationship with us could go longer than the six-month period without retirement participation or benefits.
>> the language changes that you bring back will bring all of them, basically. All the
>> any approximate time we may be able to deal with that?
>> I think we can get to -- how fast do you think we can get to it?
>> generally policy is us. So that's why I'm --
>> we're in the midst really of advising a number of our personnel policies. And the efficient way for us as a department to manage that would be to bring it in with other policy revisions. And it's a part of our work plan to bring those in before the end of the fiscal year. If that's acceptable to the court, we would like to proceed on that particular schedule, but you would prefer that we bring this in sooner, we would obviously do just that.
>> are we making a new policy after last week? That's the problem be.
>> well, we would communicate that as we have tofk the department that this is, the policy change approved by the court. And we were processing according to the new policy. And the policy changes, of course, would be incorporated as other revisions are taking place now with policies that have changed over time. So it's just a matter of how you would want it. If you want it divided, pulled from the bigger policy revisions that we're making, we can bring it in sooner. And when I say sooner, I will say from four to six weeks we could bring it back before the court.
>> I'd say sooner. If we're 60 to 65% of the way there based on the decisions we made two weeks ago, I'd go ahead and do them while they're fresh in mind, otherwise I'm afraid I would spend a whole lot of time recalling -- at my age I'd have to reconstruct the last two weeks.
>> we hear you, judge. We'll bring it back as soon as possible. Sorry we can't bring it back in two days.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I mean, I wouldn't just rush things. I don't think there's a lot of difference between four, five and six if we can do that time frame.
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Last Modified:
Wednesday, March 21, 2007 8:00 AM