Travis County Commissioners Court
April 17, 2007
Item 7
Number 7 is to consider and take appropriate action on compensation compression definition, criteria and guidelines for affected fy '06 job analysis project titles. First let's make sure we understand while we're looking at an fy '06 -- why we're looking at fy '06. That's last year, right?
>> yes, we are, judge. Linda Moore smith. We are here today and we're looking at fy '06 because there were a large number of titles out of our fy '06 job analysis project that we brought before you before the end of fiscal year '06 indicating that positions were compressed. An within that we also brought to you green circled titles that we said as a result of our recommendations they were falling below minimum of our pay grade recommendations. As you will remember, the court in the fy 2007 budget process did choose to put aside a green circled reserve, which brought those below the minimum recommendations to a minimum. Those positions that were compressed were those that did not receive any market adjustments as a result of the recommendations that we brought before you. We're here today because what had happened within its funding process, the departments are saying that there are insufficient fun to accommodate the compression that resulted from your approval of the '06 recommendations. And if we take a look at what is compression, I think we have been talking about that a little bit and it's in your -- in your balt-up you will see that he -- in your backup we presented the comp composition that said that compression is a reduction in the distance between pay differentials so that the difference in pay becomes too small to be considered equitable. And let me give you an example of that if I may. Assume that we're working with a pay grade 13 perhaps that was below minimum of your approved pay grade minimum. And with the green circled fund, that particular position or incumbent was brought to min wum with resources that you made available through your comp allocations. For any individual that was already above minimum of the pay grade, there was no movement. Or the movement was not significant enough to be considered equitable between the person who moved to minimum and the person who had no movement at all. And much of that is determined by the experiences that individuals have in a particular job, their education, their skill. So what you have is that compressed, experienced person against perhaps a more inexperienced personnel who is saying that what is the real value of my years of experience, my knowledge, my skills and my contributions to Travis County? So we're here today because the county clerk, the district clerk as well as the tax assessor's office has been experiencing chag lengz as it relates to recruitment and retention. And a part of the presentation made to you several weeks ago is that those challenge are now threatening their productivity and service delivery in term of meeting the taxpayers' requirements and needs. We were asked as a department to bring to you not only the definition, but also criteria and guideline by which departments could make some determination on what positions are compressed and to just sort of get a handle on how it is there longer were also training the folk who were coming on, being hired and less experienced. So they were doing the training of these other employees. And that should be worth something in an organization or in the department as well to get everybody up to speed to be able to become efficient.
>> through the court's action in fy 2007, the one percent comp allocation was designated to address not only compression, performance pay and any salary adjustments that the departments might have chosen to make. It could have been possible that the salary adjustments could have been made for an individual such as the one that you're describing. I think the bigger question and concern raised by the departments was that the one percent was not sufficient to address the compression issue that was put before them.
>> it was too small to be able to address that.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> if we roll foyer percent into the base as a cola, you affect the employees already here. So if you are hired after that action, you don't get the four percent. We didn't put the four poars the job, we put the four percent in the base pay of the person, right? Of incumbents?
>> that's correct.
>> so I guess I'm having a hard time -- why wouldn't the person here at least have a four percent differential over the person later hired, unless the hiring person makes the conscious decision to pay the new person more than the one already on board.
>> in one example the green circle funding was effective January first. The four percent --
>> what does that have to do with this? Cola was my example. That was just four percent for everybody here. Our goal was let's take care of people here with at least four percent. So if you're hired after that -- would I hire a new person in at a salary that's close to the incumbent's salary, including the four percent?
>> the differential with the department, even with the four percent, the differentials with the departments is that that was not significant enough to mitigate the problem that they had before them. The four percent cola indeed was applied across the board. It was applied to the green circle, those who had been below because as you will remember, we applied the green circle -- the cola before we applied the green circled reserve dollars. So the person who was below minimum received the four percent. Those who were here of course and above minimum receive the four percent, but still that was not sufficient enough to maintain an equitable distance between those who were in that same pay grade.
>> was the green circle pay, did it just fill the gap between what the salary had been plus cola or just what the salary has been not including the cola?
>> including the cola.
>> it included the cola.
>> so someone who is at market minimum, is not actually at market minimum plus four percent for the cola, is that correct?
>> the four percent -- the portion of the dollars that got them to minimum. And then whatever that difference might have been that came out of the green circle reserve. So it was always the goal with the application of cola as well as the green circle reserve to get those individuals to at least minimum of the pay grade. And that did happen to a significant number of those who were affected by our recommendation. The flip to that is those who were already aboveo are at market minimum and those who were at market minimum before green circle?
>> that would be one way to make that determination; however, as we have worked with the departments, to say that it's four percent is really a wild card that we're using with that because main times it's the skills of individuals who are even above minimum, their knowledge, their experiences that could only be determined by the department as to whether or not they would merit that kind of move.
>> and what about the salary differentials, when someone leaves and a new person comes on and they're coblging in at a lower pay scale than the person who left previously? Is that money is available to distribute for increased equity among the employees, right?
>> yes. And I think pbo has some information maybe on that, but yes, that is correct.
>> and the -- the county clerk and the tax assessor collector's office, the assertion is that the one percent plus the salary savings is insufficient to create that?
>> yes.
>> but if you were green circled and eligible, you got four percent plus green circle compensation?
>> if the four percent did not bring you to minimum of the pay grade, you received the four percent plus the green circle -- a pors of the green circle reserve.
>> but at the end of the day you're still at market minimum.
>> yes.
>> you're not at market minimum plus four percent.
>> no, that's correct.
>> so we use the four percent to get them higher up the ladder.
>> exactly.
>> which really reduced the amount that was coming out of the green circle reserve because the four percent was deducted from that before we tapped the reserve.
>> is there any remaining money left in the green circle reserve?
>> yes, there is.
>> how much do we have left in the green circle reserve right now as we speak this morning?
>> the green squirrel reserve started at 803,156 and it currently has a balance of 229,853.
>> okay. Now, I guess my next question is, is there a -- I guess a pull on the remaining money? Has anybody requested any more green circled adjustments to make those person whole, to make sure they're at least at minimum? Like the judge stated urger, the four percent was to actually separate, be used for the persons that are here, already on board, we compensate them four percent. So thing move, the scale. So if you want to call the scale however you call it, thing move. People who come in later shouldn't be -- shouldn't really be an issue. So my question, though, in looking at that administrative family and stuff like that when we looked at it, my question is has all of the money been earmarked, the remaining green circled money have been earmarked for the departments that we still have. Has everybody been satisfied up to date as far as today?
>> Commissioner Davis, departments are aware that April 30th is the deadline. April 30th is the deadline to tap against green circled reserve. The bag that leroy mentioned to you is fairly close because we have just a few positions -- what number would you say? About 20 positions that are yet to be processed against that balance. So you can anticipate that there will be a balance, very close.
>> yes.
>> we don't know what the balance will be. There may be some slots out there it that are still green circled. 36 a few. There's about 20 and we're not expecting that to be a significant impact against the balance.
>> so we'll have a balance in the green circle reserve?
>> yes.
>> all right. My next question is this, and it still kind of behooves me. I'm still kind of confused. I run across folks all the time asking me to -- I hear that Travis County has great benefits and they have some great job opportunities. How in the heck can I get on, Commissioner Davis? I would love to get employed by Travis County. They're a good employer. They do da, da, da. And you tell twheam to do. And you go through you guys and whoever else they need to talk to about getting hired. And that's entry level stuff that we're talking about. People looking for jobs. And I've got a whole bunch of folks over in precinct 1 that I know need jobs. And it doesn't -- it kind of behooves me that we aren't hiring people that need jobs be at entry level. If we're bringing them in, we're bringing them in at a higher grade. And this is what causes a lot of the compression is that we're bringing people in off the street, getting trained and stuff like that and we're bringing them in at a higher level than people already here. I don't have a problem with that, but somewhere along the line you need to make adjustments in that particular situation. We need to keep that situation. Otherwise this compression issue will be looking at us every year, every year if we don't make the necessary adjustments to deal with this situation. And again. I know personally that folk are asking me about employment with Travis County. It happens all the time. And why they aren't getting hired at entry level positions, I don't know. I don't know if they're even being interview. I haven't followed up on them fks but I know the request is they need jobs big time. And we have victim vaikt sis -- vacancies all around here. I'm not fussing this morning. Laugh.
>> [ laughter ]
>> I don't want you to think I'm fussing at you, but there's something wrong with that picture. People are begging for work.
>> one thing, Commissioner Davis, is we do aggressively recruit for all of our job job vacancies and one of the pluses for Travis County is we have become an employer of choice. So we have many more people wanting to come to work for us than what our approved number of f.t.e.'s will say I d. I'll take an entry level job. I want to get in and provide for their responsibilities. So I'm having some confusion about this altogether, like compression issues. I see what we're doing, but I think it's still incumbent upon the department to alleviate that compression situation. Especially if they have money leftover in their department when they're bringing somebody and they've got salary savings and a whole bunch other stuff. It will take all of us to help this issue. The departments will have to take responsibility on that.
>> back to compression. If our goal is to use whatever is left over from the green circled reserve after April 30th, to address compression issues in Travis County, what's the fair way to get out the word to departments with compression that in fact some funding is available.
>> the operative term is fair, what is fair.
>> we have had people calling us from a couple of week ago. And one of the thing they have asked us to share with the court is that there were a large number be of -- there were additional departments affected by compression issues out of the fy '06 project. So they too asked for fairness and equity and how it is that this issue is brought forth and recommendations made before the court. We would propose that in the compression definition, criteria and guidelines that we presented to you or would present to you today that those be considered and approved by the court to serve be as a framework for departments to use and develop in their fy '08 budget. That criteria, with the presentation of slots perhaps included within the fy '08 budget, would then give what we believe is a fair and equitable way for all departments within the realm of the guidelines to identify those spots and to put a price too long on it. We are also -- a price tag on it. We are also recommending to the court that the balance of the green circle reserve perhaps be redirected to become a compression reserve for fy '08. And against the plans and the budgets that would be submitted by the departments, hr would then take a look at that and determine based on the guideline and criteria if all conditions have been met to be approved, as we did with the green circle, to be approved for tapping the compression reserve.
>> I would think that we would need to a current reserve forward, but I would think that we would need to add a little bit more to that if we're going to include other departments and how they stand. However -- and I guess we could say that all of the departments that would come forward with their compression issues are all important functions for the public. I certainly would say that the Tuesday assessor and county clerk and district clerk employees are kind of like frontline employees who deal with the public. And it's essential that they deliver accurate information to the public. But I agree that we need to move forward with the compression definition, but I also think that we need to do something. And I think we need to start somewhere along the line because these departments also take in revenue and it's just really essential. And I would guess that the other departments are going to be essential too in the service that they provide to the public, but these are just three that are coming now, and that should be a trend that we can see continue as we look at the issue of compression as it affects everybody. By if we start there, bringing in revenue, being frontline employees, delivering stofs the public, and not only service, but it has to be accurate service to the public. Nobody wants a mistake in elections, nobody wants a mistake in taxes. Nobody wants a mistake in getting the correct information about what we owe in taxes. And then not to mention the respect that I think we need to give employees who have been in these positions for a long time.
>> been very patient with us. It's not easy exercise to go through to come up with with fair compensation, but I would like for us to start right now with the departments that have stepped up. And we know that tax assessor and the county clerk are very essential fingses for the public.
>> but what about our decision that we made public during the budget process? , that we were not funding compression? That decision was for '07. It wasn't for '08. It doesn't -- if money is left over, I have no problem with spending it as soon as may one, but we bought to spend it fairly. And we're on record as saying we're fund agriculture green circled reserve and we're giving departments five percent, four cola, one percent to deal with other issues. If we want to change our mind on what the unspent green circle reserve, then I have no problem with that. But I do have a problem with not putting standards in place and applying them evenhandedly.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> so if we want to spend that in may it's fine with me as long as we get the work done now. So is this the textbook example of compression, the definition that we have?
>> yes, it is.
>> because I don't know that it make a whole lot of sense to me. I need to reread it, so I'm going to need a week. I also need five examples from the three departments of what you consider to be your worst case of a compression problem. That way I can really understand. These are words that through the non-human resources person, are good, but I have a hard time kind of -- really coming to grip with it. But if I've got examples -- and I don't need names. I have numbers, alphabets. But are we really saying compression is when the employee with more seniority makes less than the new one? We talk about value, we talk about skills, are we talking about just seniority or all of them?
>> it's a combination of seniority, skills. We've seen what the jobs require different knowledge and skill sets over time, so it's not just seniority. Certainly that is one of the factors, but not solely seniority. And it's the knowledge base. And quite frankly, there are sometimes individuals coming in who are new who have a skill set that we now require that's a bit different sometimes.
>> where does that come into the definition?
>> it's in the definition portion of that, judge, on page 2, right on the bottom under c it indicates that employees of the same pay grade and same job clfks are compressed. So the point that differences in pay are not equitable to reflect experience, performance and their skill levels.
>> do you include knowledge in skills?
>> yes. Adjustment.
>> but you've got performance based pay here?
>> well, it would be --
>> let's say over the last three or four years, that one percent, plus the cola accumulates. So as a supervisor I determine how to use my one percent on top of the cola. If I use my one percent for performance based pay, at least my good employees share in the one percent up to the point that the amount allows me. I don't have to give one percent performance based pay, I can give three percent. I just can't give everybody three percent because I only have one percent. If I've got 100 employees, I've got the equivalent of one percent for each one of them. Let's say I want to single out the top third. I can give them all three percent, right? So why wouldn't I take care of my most valued employees that way?
>> departments may -- hello.
>> in good management you would. You absolutely would. And that is -- the problem is that departments are saying they don't have enough. One of the peculiarities of what we did in fy '06, if you remember, we did all the administrative classes. That is the majority of the people in the county clerk, district clerk and tax offices. Those families had special problems. The other thing I would caution the court is opening the door and saying, okay, now it's -- it's a free for all, come and get some money, because it's not about that. It's about focusing on the families that have the most problems. And that's why our recommendation is for you to look at the families that we did in fy '06 because that's where we actually saw the problem. You didn't hear about this before.
>> the worst problem?
>> the worst problem.
>> because you can have 10 employees with the worst problems in the world. You can have 40 whose problems really --
>> because there were so many of them, judge. That's why we saw the problems. It was such a large group that we looked at and they had not been looked at for four years. When we looked at them and the green circle, it's when really you hadn't heard about this being a big issue before, but with that particular family, there were so many of them and there were so many of them that had big jumps is where you saw it. Yes, some of the issue can be taken care of through performance, but what they're saying is that they don't have enough money with the one percent. If the allocation had been two percent for cola, three percent for taking care of other things, maybe they would have had enough money, but the way that it was, four percent and only one percent, they're just saying they just don't have enough money to take care of it.
>> when you apply cola across the board, you still shift somebody within the same distance, maintaining the same distance. Then when you do the performance, then that helps a little bit, but it doesn't help the original senior person with the knowledge of the job and who has to train the other new, inpersonsed person.
>> that takes a pay adjustment and they may have more of those than the one percent. The other issue is that not all these -- I'm gd glad you asked for the examples because not all the examples that were brought to you were compression in terms of hiring people at minimum. That really is a budget rule that all new positions are budgeted at minimum. That's not a compensation issue. A compensation -- a classification structure issue. You have the structure already. That's merely a funning issue. Funding issue.
>> am I being simplistic? What I'm hearing is this is an issue of not having sufficient flexibility in the departments to address the equity issue. That the one percent wasn't sufficiently -- didn't provide sufficient flexibility. Is that a simplistic --
>> no, that's right. You're right.
>> but you can use your one percent as you see fit. If you use your one percent to give everybody one percent, the impact is much smaller. So I guess -- so did compression result from policies by the Commissioners court or from poor use of flexibility by supervisors?
>> linda, tell me from an hr standpoint, how much weight is given whenever you start looking at vacancy rates in because the one thing that I wasn't aware of when the department came and talked to me, is that there is only a seven -- less than an eight percent vacancy rate. And that doesn't mean that people you've got working for you aren't upset about their salaries, they're just not leaving. And that is something to be said. But I guess is that a barometer that is used whenever hr says I'm not going to agree with you that you have a problem because I'm going to look at the vacancy rate and the vacancy rate in the county clerk's office is less than eight percent, is less than eight percent in the district clerk, is less than three percent in the tax collector's office. What would that tell you? Would that till you to tell the department, come back to me whenever you've got a real problem?
>> it would really depend on which positions we're speaking of. Because if those are the frontline positions where there are vacancies, it's beginning to impact service delivery as customers walk in. What I will say is that once the vacancies turn over as indicate willed earlier -- as I indicated earlier, it depends on where you're attempting to recruit and what is your flexibility for recruiting or resources to recruit persons to come in and fill those vacancies. What I'm hearing from the departments is that the resources are not there. When they go in to try to replace those individuals who are leaving. I will say that our average, six-month average turnover rate for the county is 4.5%. When you look at any employment entity, you're thinking of an average of being maybe 10 to 11 percent. And that percent for us, if we hold that through the remainder of the fiscal year, is really reducing the amount of turnover that we're having county wide. That is the big picture. That doesn't take away from the needs, of course, that the departments of course have. But we are trending lower rates.
>> I lose an employee who has been with me 10 years. That employee makes a lot more money than one hired in new, right? When my employees leave, that money is in n. My budget. Let's say I go influence posting and recruiting. I'm not trying to bring somebody in at the minimum of the slot.
>> the budget requires that.
>> pardon me?
>> if that's the problem, then that's what we ought to fix. If you're telling me departments are doing that, then maybe what we ought to do is make clear that if they find a suitable new applicant to replace an experienced, valued employee, then we need to put them in a position where they have the flexible to do that. Flexibility to dothat.
>> [one moment, plee, for ange icaptioners]
>> let me see if I can clarify, christian, if I can clarify that. The budget rule is that we budget new positions at minimum. That we also, that the practice is, that if you have an -- a long-term employ, that say is red lined, that is at the top of the range, that we do not, p.b.o. Does not take away those funds when that person retires or terminates. I think that christian has some numbers that h employee --d employee to replace one that's leaving, right? It's a newly created f.t.e.
>> during the budget process.
>> because we have no way of knowing what employees may leave track during the year. So we have budgeted john doe or jane doe at his or her salary effective October 1. But let's say that that same person find a better job in November and moves on, right? Well, what's in the budget is -- that person's full salary.
>> that's correct.
>> so my understanding was there's nothing to keep the department from using most or all of that money for the salary of the new person.
>> that's exactly correct. The -- and to put this into context, just take -- just take the tax office, for example. There's 122 f.t.e.'s. In the tax office. And their personnel budget is $6 million. Just slightly over 6 million. If they get two new f.t.e.'s, brand new, those two are budgeted at entry level.
>> minimum.
>> minimum.
>> all right.
>> under the assumption, also, that -- that that minimum salary is sufficient to attract someone to do that job. The other 122 people are anywhere from minimum to above maximum. And most of them were somewhere in between. Any of those individuals who leave, they are going to be replaced. It is the management that decides the compensation level of the replacement. Based on the funds that are available. So -- so if the management of the department says "i have a compression problem," through turnover one can identify resources within the resources of that department to address the compression problem. Now, if compression is the highest priority problem of that department. If there's no turnover, then that ability is not there. If there's one percent performance based pay, the management has the opportunity to do what the county judge said or the management or the department has the ability to spread the one percent equally. Those are choices that the management has. And each of those decisions is unique to the culture of the department, the style of management, the particular problems that they have, the unique circumstances that occur with each employee who leave. And -- and one can have generalizations, but it really comes down to what are the unique problems of the department, each department is different.
>> that brings about this point. If in fact the new people are hired in at minimum, that helps us protect against compression.
>>
>> [indiscernible] the that you need at that level.
>> when the department comes in and asks for a creation of a new f.t.e., we rely on the department's request. So maybe the point should be if -- maybe the point should be if the county clerk or district clerk comes in and asks for, say, two f.t.e.'s, we typically ask, okay, where should these people be, maybe instead of funding them at minimum, we go a little higher than that. This is newly created positions. I thought our problem was that we were paying new people more than the ones already working in Travis County were making, therefore creating unfairness.
>> that's happening, also
>> [multiple voices]
>> that's happening, also.
>> [multiple voices]
>> you have to pay them more than the minimum. That's what the -- what gets you into this --
>>
>> [indiscernible]
>> [inaudible - no mic]
>> let me ask this question: the market survey that we have, we look at this, what's out there in the market. Now if the market salary survey says that these newly hired persons, even at the minimum, are at market because we look at market, we made a jump within market, that market, then those skill sets, all of these other things all encompassed and roll into that position because the market salary survey says that we are paying that market. How can we end up bringing -- this is entry. I'm talking about entry, how can we end up bringing persons in higher than what market is suggesting and especially if those persons meet those skill sets that market requires us to do, to identify what's out in the market. In other words it's almost like we are going to bring a person in, this is what the skill set is, this is what we pay you at entry level. Appears that should be applicable across the board. I don't understand why we are doing the other and end up with compression issues. The judge brought up very clearly, 4%, when you say cola, 4%, moves to scale, separates right there. If we bring in persons, new entry level persons, we know their market, bring them in higher, they are at market. According to the market salary survey. Somebody explain that to me.
>> you have a range, salary range.
>> I know.
>> within that range is minimum
>> [indiscernible] when you say bringing individuals in above, if a particular job requires knowledge of particular software as an example are the technological, the information age that we are all getting into, that we are into that's requiring the different skill set, we can't compete in the labor market that's out there for individuals if we bring them in at minimum. Those positions would create a situation for our vacancy rates would be even higher and services would suffer, so in order to fill those positions with critical needs, we've had it with the nurses, we've had it with i.t., some other titles that we have had challenges with just because the labor force is not there unless we pay above, although it's market, minimum, mid and maxed, we have to pay above that minimum to attract individuals in with certain skills.
>> good morning, I would like to give you an example, Commissioner. We brought in an employee who had bilingual skills as well as could do -- could sign, so we had an employee that not only met the skills but went above what we were requiring. In that situation I think it would merit us to give an employee a little higher than the minimum because, you know, they bring some value to the office.
>> now --
>> well, when we reclassified, we had employees that had been there perhaps 20 years, 15 to 20 years. We bring in someone new and because we had to hire -- we had to upgrade their salaries to the entry level, we -- some of them are making the same as somebody that came in, that's what we have been talking about.
>> the example of the new people, speak spanish and do sign language, like Sam Biscoe who has been with the county forever can't do that. It doesn't bother me if somebody brings special skills, they get special pay. That's not compression, is it?
>> no, but he was asking me about market, what the market bears, what I was saying is sometimes you have to go above that because we do bring added skills.
>> which we do it all of the time which is fair. Commissioner eckhardt, let's give you a chance smile shut up for a while.
>> I'm just trying to wrap my brain around this. We did a market salary survey for this family. Are we saying that it was inaccurate?
>> no.
>> so we are -- we have full buy-in that the market salary survey was correct.
>> that's correct.
>> but it is only benefiting those at the lowest pay scale, is that what you are saying?
>> the availability of funds to execute the market salary recommendations is what the fact is.
>> it seems -- what I'm trying to do is separate out the compression issue or some of the other issues coming up. I'm just trying to get a handle on this. One is a recruiting issue that you bring up, not necessarily a compression issue, correct? It can bring about a compression issue, right? Then another is a retention issue, correct? It could be a compression issue, you have a retention issue, not necessarily compression, but it is
>> [indiscernible] --
>> could become --
>> because the fact is government will never be able to pay what the open market can pay. So some of that is not -- it's just the fact that -- that an i.t. Person, for example, is not -- you know, that they can make $20,000 more in the private market, they might not stay, right? So then there's compression. So I'm seeing three separate issues. I'm seeing recruitment, retention and compression and sometimes compression overlaps with retention. Am I --
>> you are correct.
>> okay. But we do feel that our market salary survey for governmental employee was appropriate.
>> exactly.
>> I'm also trying to separate out a market salary survey for government employees of a certain skill set versus the retention issue where if you were to look at market salary for the private market, for the same skill set, which also drives a certain amount of retention and recruitment issues, am I right about that?
>> actually, I was -- our salary structure is based on both public and private. Based on both. But the issues that you raised in terms of compression, retention and -- and recruitment are all valid, separate variables to take a look at. Which is why we were recommending that only the departments could go into their workforce and make the determination based on the variables that you mentioned, that everything is not necessarily a compression issue. We agree with that. I think the departments also agreed with that.
>> do we have buy-in from the departments on the compression definition, the criteria and the guidelines that are laid out in the backup? Do people --
>> you want to respond to that?
>> I can -- I can start with that, Commissioner, dana debeauvoir, Travis County clerk. We are just now getting our hands around this proposal, too. The -- our initial or my -- the county clerk's initial take on this is -- it's absolutely the step in the right direction. We think that this is a good idea. Because there are two points that -- that I think this will help us get clear. The judge rightly raised the issue today as well as last week. We have equity issues. We have all kinds of issues in county government. We do not want you to -- to, you know, throw up the doors, throw open the coffers, start talking to every single person about an equity issue. We want you to focus on this particular problem that was caused by this family at this time.
>> when you say this particular problem --
>> you can call it whatever you want.
>> I'm looking for -- I'm looking for a definition of what this particular problem is.
>> this -- let me try this. Okay? This particular problem is, like, for example, one of the things that we have made clear is that it isn't our entire offices that are having a problem. It is a specific family and then within that family there are hugely egregious problems. All right? For example it says in your handout here that county clerk has a turnover rate of 7%. Well, that's true averaged out for the whole office. But my accounting people and my elections people are not part of the problem. Let's just talk about criminal. All right. We brought in facts. Nobody mentioned facts. We have got to talk about facts. 13 people were hired all at once funded at minimum in the county clerk's office to deal with facts.
>> right. I'm
>> [multiple voices]
>> have jobs change to now require knowledge, skills, behavioral --
>> give me just a chance here. In 2005, let's just talk about the criminal division, the turnover rate vacancy rate is something that changes day to day. Talk about turnover because it's a more solid picture where you can get at it in terms of budget numbers. The turnover rate was 18.52%. This is not my data base. This is your data base. The turnover rate, the following year for criminal, was 14.71. As of this year, halfway through the year, it is at 11.76% -- that's the definition of the problem.
>> so that's not necessarily a compression is, though.
>> it is. It was a delay in doing the market and the cola compounded the compression issue. So it is several pieces coming together to create this problem. And I'm sorry I don't have a two seconds sound byte to give you a fancy name for it. This is the problem.
>> what happened to the remaining money? If your turnover rate, there's a savings that take place, what happened -- something funded, somebody leaves for the salary and I guess the -- the benefits all of that leave with the person I guess as far as -- the money -- they still are residing in the department, the person is gone, you but the money still remains for the rest of the year.
>> yes. But because, Commissioner --
>> what happened --
>> because what was funded is the minimum. So I've got the funding in the budget for whatever that person's salary is at that level. We are talking about now that we are in a new budget year, okay, you have 13 people funded at minimum, there's not enough room to absorb everything that you need to do. That's the point that we are trying to make. Especially in facts.
>> so the turnovers that you are experiencing and things like that and vacancies that you have within those departments, those are -- the turnover rate is just in the minimum position. They are not in any other motion? In other words we fund something for the year, we put something in the budget to last for the whole year. And I'm having trouble --
>> it's not.
>> [multiple voices]
>> I'm having trouble understanding.
>> it's minimum.
>> a person does not complete the year of work in Travis County, then the money that we funded just -- still resides in the department. It doesn't come back to the general fund. It's still in the department. My question is what happens to that money.
>> okay. Fair enough,.
>> I can answer that one. What happens to that money is first of all you have a whole influx of new people in because we are responsible for operating new programs. Okay? The second thing is that -- that the -- that the money that would have -- that maybe is left over from somebody who left and you have got a few dollars that you can then spread amongst your other problems gets eaten by temporary because you are tying to deal with th backlogs caused by the fact that you can't seem to keep people in these positions. So temporary money comes out of that. If you are ready to hire your new person, you have a new age skill and a new person that may or may not, you would hope they have more skills. All of that gets funded out of the salary savings.
>> suggested at minimum. Let me give you an example in your shop, for any shop in the county, you have a grade 13 employee.
>> can you start talking about one employee, talking about the bulk.
>> that's where the damage was done.
>> okay.
>> it may be related to the implementation of facts because you got 13 new employees funded at minimum. I'm talking about a hypothetical, the Commissioner's question about what happens to the money, decisions are made about that money. They are rational decisions, but they are optional decisions that the management has. Hypothetically. A grade 13 employee, making 10% above neutral. They make $39,753. That person leaves. And the replacement is higher, two levels above minimum, hypothetically. That person two levels above minimum is making $31,262. The department just found 8491 for salary increase. Somewhere in the department. I'm talking about permanent decision. The person was making one level, the replacement -- they have been there 10 years, five years, 20 years, whatever. The new employee makes significantly less. The department keep that's money and can reallocate it in ways that are important to the department. And each decision is an -- is a separate decision that the department can make. Now, you may not have enough flexibility, but there is some flexibility. The answer to the Commissioners question is that what happens to the money is it stays in the department except for a brand new position that is then budgeted at -- at entry.
>> in my position where I have a low turnover rate, I don't have any salary savings.
>> that's a compression issue. Sounds like dana's issue is that her f.t.e. Minimums were set too low and --
>> [multiple voices]
>> flexibility for me to operate with -- there wasn't anything to do with it. The other thing is that we have spent, I disclosed this when I did the presentation last week or two weeks ago, we spent $75,000 on temporaries to keep us afloat while we were going through the -- the 18%, 14% and now 11% established now long-term turnover rate for this one particular department.
>> that is an entry level, predominantly, high turnover, difficulty in retention.
>> it's throughout, but they are not the highest paid employees by any means, by any means.
>> 75,000 --
>> temporary money to keep us afloat.
>> how much money was generated by the vacancies?
>> oh, I don't know.
>> that's important, because if you spent 75,000 and 75,000 you didn't gain anything. If you spent 75,000 and generated 350,000 --
>> [multiple voices]
>> > the court is making the assumption that I have salary savings that will address these issues bringing people in. What I am suggesting to you is that well, yes and it's also used for temporary savings and also used for -- --
>> [speaker interrupted -- multiple voices]
>> we allocating --
>> let me make a clarification. There are two types of salary savings. The first time -- first type we are talking about are permanent salary savings. This is when you have an employee that leaves that's making 39,000, the replacement is hired at 31. That's $8,000 worth of permanent salary savings that a department has the flexibility to use in their permanent salary base. Now, that's different than temporary salary savings. Temporary you have a $36,000 employee that leaves, well, that -- every month that that employee, that position is vacant, you have $3,000 worth of temporary salary savings. That should not be confused with the permanent salary savings. You still have the 36,000 in your budget that you can appoint the next full time person to at 36 or 31. Whatever you -- you decide. So I wouldn't confuse the temporary salary savings with the permanent salary savings.
>> that is very fascinating. What's clear to me is that we need a work session discussion. We also need to generate a lot of specific questions as well as options as to how to proceed. To give the court an opportunity to respond. Two recommendations on the table. I guess one is we use whatever green circle money that there is as soon as we know that we have dealt with the green circle issues for '07. Then the question is how do we do that. Whether we do it, how do we do it, the other question is whether or not we take that money and use it in '08 to address the issues. Seems to me that in fairness what we have to do is try to identify the compression issues that exist in Travis County. The other thing is in terms of this definition, I think that we have to come up with one that hopefully we all understand and those real-life examples may be the best step in that direction. But if there are issues that we need to address, we need to -- we need to address them today. I think -- I favor doing that. But I'm also -- I do think we have a commitment to be -- even handed. And but that doesn't say we shouldn't go ahead and use whatever is observed as soon as we can. Not come forth, relying on the court's announcement, then I would at least want to know that I can put my stuff together because in the budget cycle the court plans to address this. Now, the other thing is that we have always last three or four years looked at the cola because to be honest the majority of Travis County employees said you do the cola, we will know it's fair. You give money to the manager, we don't -- we are not sure. I have never -- I don't have a strong preference one way or the other except to be fair. So I mean we need to figure out where we are in terms of market and if -- if bypassing the cola, putting that money in more -- in more flexible programs makes a lot more sense for the '08 budget. We need to start working about it.
>> the other thing judge. I agree with everything that you have say. We have addressed the administrative support family before. For me these three departments are kind of like the cleanup that we need to do because of the issues that have risen to the top. Identifying problem areas. And then I also see the possibility of '08 having all of the other departments address their -- their problem areas as identified here. And then that would call for a different -- reserve, if you will. But in the meantime, I -- what I see these issues as -- they are as cleanup for '07. They are left over.
>>
>> [indiscernible] that was not my understanding.
>> I think they are left over.
>> the facts will support that?
>> judge then what --
>> then I think that would also set the trend for how we address the other issues in '08 and '09.
>>
>> [indiscernible] I want to make sure that the department understands according to mhmr they have until April the 30th I think to deal with the green circle employee issue and if you -- all of y'all, coming before the court today, if you have green circle issue, then of course the clock is ticking. According to what -- what I heard this morning from p.b.o., there's actually 229,855 -- $85, rather, left in the green circle reserve. There will be some money leftover out of that reserve after the -- after the persons from different departments have satisfied their green circle deficiencies in their department. So I think that it's pretty important that that happen before April 30th. Make sure that everybody understand that. So -- so we can, you know, discuss that a lot later in more detail in a lot of these other issues.
>> if we are looking at adopting a compression definition guidelines, et cetera, seems to me that we ought to take our best shot at budget that in draft form. Then -- then getting feedback from affected departments. Before the work session discussion. Seems to me that we should be able to generate specific questions that -- that enable us to address concerns or end able us to move to the next step.
>> yeah.
>> judge, one of the -- one of the issues that I guess that you can define something and then ask for feedback and people will -- will, you know, skew the definition every which way to to suit their own benefit. That's human reality. I'm not saying anything disparaging -- I
>> [multiple voices] --
>> not be a compression issue.
>> I think that you do have to go with textbook, I really do as best practices.
>> you don't understand text back, what do you do?
>> I think you study. I think you study. And that's what we all learn.
>> study and come back with something I can understand
>> [laughter]
>> yeah.
>> no, no, it's not me studying, it's you studying, judge.
>> [laughter]
>> we will be happy to visit with you to --
>> my understanding only gets us part of the way there. Our understanding gets us part of the way there. The departments out there with hundreds of employees are the ones that I think we need to make sure understand what definition we plan to use. The other thing is, you know, every -- every supervisor with a group of employees that don't quite make enough money doesn't have a compression problem.
>> that's right.
>> so if we are dealing with inequity, it's one thing. If we are dealing with compression, there's a requirement to be a lot more precise. It seems to me. Today's conversation has reinforced that more than anything else. To be honest, I'm left now, difference between now and when we started out at about 10:00, is what I need to know is a whole lot broader than I thought and there are a lot of specific questions I think that we need to address before we take action. Who knows where the conversation will go. In work session we don't have the pressure of other items that we need to take up, it will be a lot more informal.
>> > good morning, I agree it's not fair when we do this every budget year. Put you in this position, I almost have to say that you are asking for it because we do a lot of things and we take -- continue to take these piecemeal approaches to dealing with budget problems. One year we're focused on green circle, now compression. We can never come up where what that definition is. Market studies I'll contend are your biggest problems. Not how they are done, but the accident that you don't fund them properly. The employee sees the shift in this pay range, but not in his pay. It falls within the pay range of the new market study, doesn't get a penny out of that. New employees coming in get the benefits because that minimum has moved that's a classic definition of some compression. It's a whole host of issues here. I would suggest to you if you try to accomplish that in some work session, you are going to come out of that probably as frustrated as you walked into it. Maybe a little bit better understanding. I don't know that that's necessarily what you are elected to do. I think it's for you to address something comprehensive and I think that's what we have failed to really give you and approach that we have failed to take. We address these problems as they occur. Every year some different crisis, some different departments, they are all legitimate. I contend with you we are going to be doing this forever until we do sit down. What I would suggest is that you create a panel of your stakeholders, departments, hrmd, all of the stakeholders, we talk about these issues, these policies that go into it. Hiring, for instance, these assumptions that were made that says why you budget a new position at the minimum level. The minimum pay grade. Where did that come from? I would argue, too, that -- that the effective compensation policy argues that you hire people and you budget accordingly, that's at a midpoint. That's established with someone five to seven years experience and you peg everything off of that kind of midpoint. I'm not going to get into the details of it. I have been doing this sfowf 17 years, also. Reacting to these kind of issues, that's what I would suggest to you, sam, is that we get a working group together and we come up with effective policies, how we are going to do studies, still going to be left with a major problem and this does become specifically your problem. We can tell you exactly what needs to be done or come real close to it. But then there's a price tag attached to that. You have got to make a decision, you have got to suck it up and say we are going to do right by our employees, we are going to do what's right by this county to keep our good employees here and attract qualified employees to this county to deliver services that the citizens are relying upon, but it's going to cost. We can implement that over a period of time, but it's got to be done correctly up front. We are going to be here doing the same dialogue, year in and year out. Thank you.
>> thank you all very much? Anything else on this item today, court? We will have it back on with -- with some sort of recommendation about how to proceed at some point.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, April 18, 2007, 8:34 AM