Travis County Commissioners Court
August 21, 2007
Item 12
>>
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> ...request is that we discuss this as much as we need to today, but not take action. This ought to be at the top of our budget markup agenda, along with revenue. I'm figuring that if we deal with revenue and deal with this big compensation item, that will guide us through the rest of markup. During our work session, we basically completed most of our discussion, but not all of it, and floon have another -- and plan to have another work session discussion, but frankly ran out of those budget work sessions, so we put it on today's agenda. I guess you caught audit to let us know which one of the subsections you're talk being as you walk us through this.
>> yes, sir.
>> and we have others who have come to address us on this matter. May I see a show of hands of those who have come? Okay. Then we will take a full hour to discuss this thoroughly. As you mentioned, judge, we have discussed a lot of these items previously, so we would like to focus on a couple of them and then be able to answer any questions, which you may have, but we can go ahead and start with a, which is a peace officers pay scale structure. And we'll focus on that for now. Pops was first adopted by the Travis County Commissioners court in 1994. Around 1995, constables were added and then later in 1998 park rangers were added and investigator. So we have a pops scale, we have tcso, pops and non-tcso pops. All the sheriff's officer, Travis County sheriff's officers, are on the tcso pops. Investigators, constables and park rangers are on non-tcso pops. So with that I'll ask you to turn to page 3. In '05, in preparation for 2006 --
>> this is our recently delivered backup.
>> yes. Page 3 of your scbraifnlght additional copies -- I think we have additional copies if anyone would like one. In 2005 the court hired a consultant, mgt, so take a very thorough and comprehensive look at the peace officers pay scale. They not only looked at compensation, but they also looked at supplemental pay. So what we did in doing further analysis for the court on peace officers pay scale is we went back to the mgt study. Again, that was done two years ago in preparation for the fy '06 budget. And they also looked at tcso peace officers pay scale structure. Again, the key word there is structure. And the non-tcso officers' pay scale structure. Mgt at the time found that the structure was indeed ahead of the market. Now, that is another point that would be -- point perhaps for much civil debate, but it's defining the market. We define the market for tcso peace officers or for the peace officer pay scale the same as we defined the market for all others. It takes -- for all other job families in Travis County. It takes into account the city of Austin and various counties from bexar, dallas, harris, denton, el paso, fort bend. It also takes in large metropolitan areas that are similar to the city of Austin or to Travis County, the city of san antonio, dallas, houston, fort worth, el paso. We look at the Texas criminal justice, also Texas department of criminal justice, and we take a small view of national organizations. And for the mgt study they loolt at hillsborough, florida, they looked at a municipality in nevada and then maricopa county to get a sound statistical basis. When they compared where Travis County was to that particular market, they found that market -- that tcso peace officers were ahead of market, therefore they recommended no increase for fy '06. The court nonetheless granted or provided a five percent increase in scale in fy '06. In fy 2007, mgt recommended a three percent cpi, cost price index, and the court did -- there was no increase in fy '07. And of course now we're in fy '08. So what we wanted to do was review what mgt had done two years ago and bring you to present. For non-tcso peace officers pay scale, the recommendation was for constables at two percent increase and park rangers two percent and then there was a much larger increase for investigators recommended because when they looked at that, they had really fallen behind their peers. Photography the court action is outlined in your memorandum at five percent per constable, six percent for park rangers and 11 to 21 percent sfroagers. -- for investigators. In '07 there would have been a three percent for non-tcso pops officers pay scale structure, butt court took again -- but the court took again no action and here we are in fy '08. Now, the question is how do we know that for the tcso pops scale that they are ahead of market? And I will ask you to turn to page 5. And this spreadsheet provides information when you compare what is defined at market with an fy '07 market update so what our current pay scale is at minimum midpoint and maximum, you see the percentage of how the particular clferks, -- a classification, whether they are a detective or deputy. For example, I'll go to a law enforcement detective, and the fy 2007 market update says that that salary should be at minimum $51,415. The current structure for travis count has that particular classification at 530,906 make ing it 4 30eu 4.3intheeferkts. Then you can fall those down the line. What we have done is provided the court several options on what to do about peace officers' pay scale. And we cover both a tcso and non-tcso. And I'm going to pause here before we go to that because I'd like for hr to cover constables because there is -- they are not ahead of market. The constables and the other two non-tcso classifications on the pay scale have different issues.
>> the last time we were in court we I think reported to the court and the court directed hr to work with the constables to make some determination on where they are relative to the market. We did indeed go into meetings with the constables. We talked with them about the challenges that they're having, recruiting as well as retaining for particular slots. And as we looked at their particular pay, we did find, and if we go over to page 6, it is, we did find that our constables are behind the market for approximately eight percent. And paul, do you have that particular spreadsheet that you could walk the court through? We're on page 6 is it?
>> yes, it's page 6 of the backup. Actually, what we're showing here is the fy '07 market update and then next to it is Travis County current minimums, and then the difference in percent. And here actually they're slightly above market, but if you'll notice, its chief deputy constable is behind market at 1.65 percent. And one of the thing that we found in doing this analysis is that Williamson county, which is one of the closest areas that we lose people to, our minimum pay right now for the deputy constable is actually below Williamson county. So despite the fact they're at market or slightly above market with the deputy constable, constable sergeant, they are still having significant problems with their recruiting. And as they related in one of their discussions with you here in court, they had lost a number of people recently, and half of those people that they had lost were to Williamson county.
>> so we know that they are indeed experiencing circumstances that have made their retention and recruitment to those -- especially those entry level positions more difficult. So we'll go to page 4 in terms of the options. As we discussed last time, we had discussed a six percent plan, and we went back to mgt to do an anal analysis of what would mgt have recommended. And then what are some options for the court to consider, staying within the dollar amount of six percent. And option a, because we know that indeed the tcso, the pops pay scale, is ahead of the market according to not only what mgt looked at, but our particular update, you would provide no adjustment to the scale this year. You would provide a three percent adjustment to the non-tcso pops scale. You would continue the step increases. And it would be our recommendation that we address the step increases. Right now they're at approximately two percent. But it depends on the particular position, whether it's 1.85 percent, 1.63 percent, 1.75 percent, it was a real eye opener to us when we started doing our analysis that those particular steps are not really a full two percent. It's just the nature of how the scale was constructed and we would recommend that that be addressed. But we would -- option a would be that that be continued, the step increases. Option d would have a three percent, which is a cost of living adjustment to the pay scale for the tcso pops. For the non-tcso pops, the constables would be -- have a six percent increase, which would make up two years of really cpi of three percent, and would help address some of the issues that they're experiencing where you see for the park rangers and investigators who are not having the same problems, option b provides a three percent increase or adjustment to scale. To continue again, the two percent, approximately two percent step increase, and that is done on the anniversary of the individual's hire date, and then option 3 -- option c would be just a six percent plan. You could cut that any way that you would like. We did one scenario where you had option c you had pops, the tcso pops have a scale adjustment of 3.8%. The non-tcso constable have an adjustment of eight percent and the other two of three percent, and we still manage -- we could pass those out. We still managed to stay within the six percent plan at 3,457,649. Those were the options. Clearly there are numerous other options, but again, our goal was to show you how the scale can be indeed increased and still stay within the budgetary limitations of the six percent plan.
>> questions?
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. What are the steps that correspond to that area
>> [ inaudible ].
>> I'm going to ask bill derryberry to come up. He wrote a memorandum that addressed that particular issue in term of corrections.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic].
>> there has been --
>> we discuss it had during briefings.
>> what's the date of the memo?
>> August the 8th.
>> '07?
>> yes.
>> we picked up one that actually is July 15th and the cutoff was July 31st. This individual did not go with some other agency, and as a practical matter, it didn't really change the result, the number of resignations. There have actually been in this fiscal year, and I got this information from debbie ridge in the sheriff's office. As of -- no November of '06 there were 24, and she uses the word co vacancies, correctional officer vacancies, in the corrections throughout the sheriff's office. There's about 740 corrections type positions, counting transportation, corrections bureau, which is of course the vast majority of these folks. And then as of today, there are 15 such vacancies. So these are --
>> [inaudible - no mic]. There are only 15 out of 740, which is about 2.03 percent. Of the corrections authorized positions.
>> so are you saying that you wouldn't consider that a recruitment and retention issue?
>> I personally -- I have seen vacancy levels as high as 120 or so since I've been year since 2000. I have never seen vacancy levels as low as this. Of course, I don't look at these things everyday, but this is a very low vacancy level out of 740. Two percent is pretty low.
>> are there hot spots within corrections?
>> [inaudible - no mic]. While there isn't the overall retention and recruitment issue, when you look at the overall, are there any hot spots within corrections.
>> I'm not an hr expert, I'm just reporting vacancy levels. I would suggest that -- I mean, female officers are always difficult to recruit. That's just an anecdotal observation. There are many reasons for that. I don't know how you can do a pay scale as female, male oriented.
>> I was thinking, in the tables,
>> [inaudible - no mic]. With an average tenure of 22.5 years.
>> huge loss.
>> that's a huge loss. And also if, for instance, a little hypothetical really, if there were a hot spot in recruitment and retention at the starting pay scale, first year corrections officers, that number would greatly stick out.
>> yes, it would.
>>
>> [inaudible - no mic]. I'm not saying it is, I'm just saying it would if there was one.
>> just look at the table. We lost an average -- we lost seven people out of the 44 to other law enforcement agency. They left with an average tenure of 2.7 years, but the tenure to the group as a whole was a small 5.1 percent. But I again must point out that we do have nine fewer vacancies right now than we did in November of last year, and those vacancies are all going to be by the nature of the way the civil service system works, entry level positions. Two of the positions, by the way, the 15 that are vacant, are correction officer positions that were created at the beginning of the fiscal year at the request of the city of Austin for central booking. Those two positions have not been filled.
>> [ inaudible ].
>> one of the other issues also that was reviewed by mgt, which we found a point of interest to many, was a comparison to a.p.d. In 2000, a.p.d. Had signed its first contract with the city of Austin. Usually what mgt found in looking at other counties and municipalities, for example, houston, harris county, bexar county and san antonio, is that there is traditionally a -- there is a difference between what a city pays its law enforcement officers and what a county pays its law enforcement officers. The average percent difference was about 18 percent at the entry level the deputy served compared to a police officer. And judge, I think you had asked a question about what is the difference in Travis County, and we were able to get that information. Paul?
>> yes. As we related earlier in the 2005 mgt study, the difference between the average difference was around 18 percent on the starting deputy pay. Looking at the difference between counties and cities. And we updated that and now what we find is that that average is about 12 -- around 12 percent, so some ground has been gained. And the difference now for Travis County, starting pay deputy versus a.p.d. Is 7.1%. So it's in the realm there. It seem that some of the other counties versus the cities have gained ground as well. So it went from around 18 percent to 12 percent.
>> the argument we heard before was that we may be close on day 1, but two years later ', a.p.d. Versus Travis County, the amount increases disramaticly -- dramatically. Do we still know whether that's true?
>> based on what's proposed for a.p.d., we have -- it is a bit more. We're talking about a difference, not necessarily average, but on the -- I'll just take the low, a 24 percent difference. And on the entry would be a 13%. It goes from 7 to 13.
>> what we may do is share the spreadsheets that we prepared with the proposed a.p.d. In comparison to where we are now.
>> the policy that has been adopted by the city of Austin is that whatever they provide the rank and file, the a.p.d. Gets two percent more. And that is the standard policy. That is, though, not -- the parity with cities and counties is not a standard anywhere in Texas. And in fact, in Travis County the court has chosen to stay ahead of the market. And for several reasons. You wanted to increase the quality of the officers that you attract and the quality that you retain. In some ways you may be in competition with a.p.d., so you don't want to fall too far behind and lose all your folks to a.p.d., so there was a cognizant choice to remain ahead of the market and also to remain somewhat competitive, especially in your starting salaries with a.p.d.
>> what you have before you on the spreadsheet, just to walk you through the format of it, would be the titles to the left. The first chum to your left is the full market update, which is the update that hr staff completed to update the mgt numbers. To the right that have is Travis County's current. Then the third column over is the difference between Travis County's current as well as the market update. You will see by the numbers that are noted there that the jors of those -- and we tend to accept the senior deputy sheriff because that's a dual title in one, but we are showing under Travis County current that we are exceeding the fy '07 market update. And that's represented by, beginning with the 4.8 percent, 3.3 and so on down the line. The next set of numbers that you have is the weighted average data that was provided by the associations, and all of the comparisons really compare against Travis County's current. So again, if you look at Travis County's current and the association's proposal, you will then see the difference between current Travis County and the proposal has been the percentages -- the percentage differences there that range from or begin at 3.6%, 22.6. The sergeant at 24.4, 21.8 and so on down the line. That column, of course, represents the increase that the difference it is that the proposals are over Travis County's current salaries. As we move again to the far right, the same format exists, of course. We're using a.p.d.'s current and the percentage difference is shown there. And then moving to the very last set of columns there, which is the a.p.d. Proposed. So specific throi the question you were -- specific throi the speak you were speaking of a.p.d. Proposed, which is the far right, and what we would have is percentage differences between current Travis County, a.p.d. Proposed that begins at the 13 percent for law enforcement, deputies, senior deputies, sheriff, 22.2% for the law enforcement detectives and 25.2% for the le sergeant and the 27.5% for the law enforcement lieutenant. So against the proposed, those are the differences of which they would be ahead of Travis County's current. That of course is at minimum of the pay grade, and then the middle section, of course, gives you the midpoint and the bottom the maximum of the pay scales.
>> and if you were to compare the weighted average as the proposals from the associations put forth, you would be a little bit below the entry level minimum for the deputy compared to the patrol officer or to the entry police officer, which I believe is patrol officer. Then the rest you would come almost to parity. You would be different of 1.33%, .65% and then for the lieutenant the only difference would be about 4.53%. You don't have those numbers in front of you. This is taking the reverse or just another perspective, that if indeed you adopted the weighted average proposal that is before you, that with the exception that the deputy and senior deputy sheriff, you would be almost at parity with a.p.d. With the exception of the lieutenants at five percent.
>> do we have one of these blue sheets to share?
>> yes.
>> any other questions on there? We'll go ahead and move forward, but the rest of this should go relatively quickly because we've been through this information before. On item b, this is the fy -- discusses the fy '07 job analysis. As you know, we looked at several job families in fy '07. And this is the second year of a three-year comprehensive review of all jobs and job families in Travis County. We looked at several job families and on page 7 those are listed. You have the results of that job analysis. The reclassifications or any changes to flsa are included in your packet, be and we would be asking for the court to make a decision on those as of judge said at the beginning of markup. Item c is the request for the development of a green circle, compensation reserve and green circle or employees that are after the reclassification they fall below the minimum of their new pay grade. This would be the second year that the court has addressed those and in fact funded them. It is not an automatic increase to the employee. They must meet the requirements, minimum requirements of the job and departments must submit proof that they meet the education and qualifications of the new classifications.
>> what's the recommendations on compensation for a particular employee who may well qualify for the three kinds of compensation recommended? Specifically funding of the market salary survey, cola adjustment, and I guess a sort of credible circumstance, green circle. Green circle I hadn't thought about until just now. You could easily get three hits the same as me, and that would be a substantial amount of money that may well land you above the market. What's your recommendation on what the court should do about that?
>> in term of the implementation, the way that we have done it in the past, and it helps not only the -- it's fair and it also helps our popular --
>> fair not to fund them or to fund them?
>> [ laughter ]
>> the method of implementation is that we would do cola first, the cost of living allowance first would be implemented. Then after that, whatever the difference is between the cost of living and the minimum of the new pay grade would be part of this green circled compensation reserve be. Again, the employee has to meet the new requirements and minimum qualifications of the new job. After that then say they got to the minimum of their pay grades. That's what the green circle reserve would do. The market adjustment reserve, which is d, and that would be administered by a matrix, which can be found on page 12. So if your pay grade went up one, be you would get a one percent. That would do -- all that would do is give you one percent above minimum of the market. If it went up five pay grades, the maximum you could get would be three percent. Three percent above minimum would not get you anywhere on midpoint. I think it still leaves you like on maybe step two of the new market.
>> so the employees covered by the '06-2007 market salary survey would fall where?
>> would fall, depending on what their particular job classifications were upgraded, how many grades.
>> they were brought to minimum with the green circled reserve in 2006. So the portion of the '08 funding that would affect them would be the market adjustment that would address the -- based on the matrix, the market adjustment tool would give them now an opportunity to move off of minimum and to recognize movement in the market as opposed to city sitting at minimum of the pay grade.
>> and we trust that would address the issues of compression and some lotion loss in pbp and those other issues. And we've met with the two big departments, both tax and the county clerk's office, spoke to the county clerk's office, met with tax and they feel that this method would take them a long way to address some of their issues, along with then some flexibility also.
>> so you're saying there's no such thing as --
>> [inaudible - no mic]. If you're handled by market adjustments, then ergo your cola has already been taken as well as your compression, and you may get a double dip between market and performance based pay, but it quadruples it
>> [ inaudible ].
>> pretty unlikely that many pay actions would put a person in a position of getting all of them.
>> these examples that you've given us, looking at the different options, could you explain again for the viewing public those that may not be aware, even though you apply a cola, if it does not come up to the minimum that there would be a minimum amount that would with be assessed to your deal. Like, for example, a 1,200-dollar minimum. Could you explain that works as far as how the cola and then after the cola is applied and if it's still not there you still have a minimum that have you to meet as far as the minimum amount of money that's applied?
>> if we're talking about the pay grade movement that a particular pay grade is green circled or a slot is green circled, then the cola would be applied first. They would be below minimum of the new market competitive pay grade. The cola is applied first. And then if that position remains below minimum after the cola is applied, it's at that point that the green circled reserve would be tapped. Assuming the person meets all of the qualifications for that new pay grade title, the green circled reserve would be tapped. And applied to that particular slot. Was that your question, Commissioner Davis?
>> not really.
>> pardon me?
>> not really.
>> I kind of thought maybe you were talking about the minimum of --
>> no. What I was talking about is the minimum amount of money after the four percent of the total applied and some of your options have you the minimum amount.
>> yes, sir. And I think in reference to that, we have -- we provided -- this is what you will see in your budget agenda worksheet or what you will work from.
>> page 31?
>> yes, sir. It is page 31. So if I as an employee got my job reclassified, say a deaf interpreter that went up five pay grades, and that's really an exception. Those skills have just turned to gold now because there are so few people with those particular skills. But if my particular -- if I was a deaf interpreter and my pay grade went with up five grades, I would have the cola first. The cost of living adjustment, that pay applies first. Then after that, whatever is left between what I'm getting with the four percent cola and the minimum of the pay grade, that come from the green circle reserve. After I am at then the minimum of the pay grade, I can get a market adjustment. And then after that it depends -- it purely depends on performance.
>> there is that full hit you were talking about, Commissioner eckhardt.
>> but in terms of getting people, though, to the minimum of the market, that is what the job is worth at minimum. Remember, we do a minimum midpoint and maximum on our jobs. And that is again what the market dictates that the job is worth. And it's at minimum. We get people to minimum. This year we have addressed -- because you heard so much about compression, you heard people and employees talking about losing pdp and any gains that they had made previously. When your pay grade goes up significantly, then employees, as you heard, feel like they have lost all those gains of performance based pay. Their tenure that they've lost that. So the market adjustment is just a means by which to get people above the minimum of the pay scale. Any other questions?
>> at some point portability has to be factored in. We will know early in markup how much money is available. So if we were able to fund only part of the various remedies that we've heard discussed for the rank and file, your order would be cola, green circle, market salary survey and other.
>> yes.
>> okay. That's just a recommendation, y'all. Staff wouldn't dream of binding us to it. In connection next?
>> cola, green circled employees, market salary survey and pdp.
>> under e, I'd like to go over that quickly. On page 31 you have a proposed attachment to the budget agenda worksheet. We will be working from this. All this -- most of the options -- are part of the six percent plan. This has been revised from the last worksheet that you got to include in option 2 the job analysis and the pay adjustment, market adjustment for fy '06 as well as fy '07. If you recall, last year our recommendation was to address compression. It was a little bit over 600,000 to address compression. That was notunded last year. And so I think what's suggested is that we go ahead and include fy '06 and at least two of these options in order to address the compression that you've heard so much about from the various departments. So this is a revised worksheet where you have option a is what we had focused on, which would provide a four percent cost of living adjustment and a two percent flexibility allocation for the departments where they could use it for performance based pay, salary adjustment or just general market adjustment or exception. It funds the fy 2007 job analysis project and it has a general market adjustment for fy '06 and fy '07. If you compare that then to revise 2, and I go to that because they're so similar, you see that revised 2 costs more and that's because that particular option has a three percent cost of living adjustment and a three percent departmental flexibility. So again it's how you slice this particular pie that it change the number somewhat. On option 1, that provides a four percent cost of living, two percent flexibility allocation, funds the green circle, but allows for no money or has no funding for compression or market adjustments. So again, the options are laid out for you. What have you in the preliminary budget is also in here. They are at -- it's at 8,590,000, an option that rethis flekts the preliminary -- that reflects the preliminary budget is option 4. And option 3 goes a little bit over. Freafers but by a very small amount. So you have all the options that reflect the amount that is the preliminary budget at 4.5 percent, and at 8.5 million.
>> questions? Thank y'all very much. Now, other have come to address the court on compensation related issues. This is their opportunity. And since they have been thinking about these issues for the last few months, I know that they can hit those highlights real quick. You have heard hrmd's recommendation, so if you are particularly supportive of one or more, let us know that. If you are critical of one or more, let us know that too. Not everybody at once.
>> [ laughter ] mr. Spicer?
>> judge, Commissioners. It's the tcslea position that for the safety of this position it's important to be able to recruit and retain qualified peace officers in Travis County. The tightening of the labor market as well as the high cost of living in Travis County impacts what we have to pay for all of our positions. If we get into a serious staffing shortage, it will be very difficult for us to recover and operate in an environment where our people have to work a significant amount of overtime and the county has to pay overtime waingz in order to keep our citizens safe and manage our jail population. We do not think our jobs are more important than other jobs in the county, all jobs in the county are important. And we don't think we should be paid more than anyone else. However, our pops scale has been traditionally operated in a very different manner than the pay scale for rank and file. Instead of relatively even increases each year, our scale is based on market analysis every three years and more or less of a maintenance level with a roughly a two percent step each year. So there's probably a spike in our proposed scale every three years. So this is -- this year we're presenting the three-year plan. This is the year of the spike. We would like the pay scale adjusted this year for fy '08 and then we wouldhope to receive a step increase in f yovment '09 and fy 2010. It is not our intention to ask for the pay scale to be be adjusted in the fy '09 and 2010 budget year. When we compare our requests to other agencies, we are looking at fy '07 wages and not comparing what we would like in fy '08. All of those agency that we contend nr our market we believe are going to receive increases in fy '08. We further believe our consultants provided a viable argument for market positions of povmentz the philosophical debate of whether we're going to use weighted averages versus not weighted averages are probably not going to be resolved today, but we are trying to focus on a local market because that's where we recruit and the cost of living for our officers is determined by the cost of living here. Not in other counties. An analogy would be the housing market f we were to sell our home you would determine the selling price for a comparable size house in Travis County. What comparable houses cost in bexar county or hidalgo county, for instance, has little bearing on the selling price of a home in Travis County. We believe that the wages in this local market are relevant benchmarks. We understand that a.p.d. Has a high pay scale. We're not asking to match the pay scale dollar for dollar. It is important to note that many of the same taxpayers that have -- that we serve have been willing to pay those wawgz through property taxes. It is also worth noting that our families shop in the same grocery stores, our children have the same clothing and need the same school intliendz pate same utility bills as a.p.d. Officers and their feap. It's not as simple and overlaying two pay scale to determine equity within our market because we don't know the true pay administration issues that are going on with the a.p.d. Pay scale. Our request could be funded with a very minimal tax increase and we believe that the additional smaul small tax increase at this time to adjust our scale for the remainder of the spike of our scale is reasonable and justified in terms of balancing the cost benefits to the taxpayers. We want to you know that we have tried to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money and we -- and we try hard to earn the respect of the community and the Commissioners court. We told you that both liability claim and worker's compensation claim have decreased over the past year for our office. We've been partners with you on strategies to deal with overcrowding and mental health issues as they impact law enforcement and corrections. And we look forward to assisting the court with other strategies. The sheriff has presented to you a case for additional law enforcement and corrections officers. We support the need for more officers. This county is rapidly growing and it takes more law enforcement and corrections officers to support the impact that the growth is having on public safety. However, we do not feel that we should be in a trade-off position where we have to choose between fair compensation fees officers versus a sufficient number of employees to do our job. We respect your hard decisions that you have to make and appreciate the thoughtful nature of this court. We're asking you to support our reasonable request for peace officers of this office and to fund our compensation proposal. We pledge to you our continued support for your initiatives and to the best of your ability to our commitment of the Travis County taxpayers to keep them and their families safe and we're open to your input and happy to answer any questions that you may have on our scale. To respond to a few of hr's recent highlights, I didn't get their backup material, so I was trying to make notes as they were going along. I think that a very important thing it for the court to remember is that we were stakeholders in the mgt study. By participating in those meetings with mgt and hr officials, we never -- we presented what our market and what our structure of a pay scale might be. Freafers and it was the same that we flentd '05 to the court, which is the exact same type of proposal, the same methodology, the same flois that we're plenting to the court this year. Presenting to the court this year. We did not agree with mgt's recommendations for basically anything in their survey. The other thing about just the blue spreadsheet that I was just given a copy of, my questions -- my concerns with this spreadsheet is another line item in this spreadsheet might be I see where hr used the weighted average and they might include the weighted averages of the min mup, mids and maxes for a.p.d. To give a true apples to apples comparison. It is not comparable to a 10-year employee with a.p.d. Because of pay administration decisions that the court has made by freezing salaries and we don't know what their midpoint is. We can see that the scale goes from one to 16 years and you can say, well, a rational conclusion would be that it is -- our midpoint might be seven. It might be 10 or 11 years. The problem is we truly don't know what a.p.d.'s midpoint is so we can't get a true apples to apples comparison without knowing their full pay administration policies and their background behind their pay scale as to what their salary -- what the true pay scale is all about. So that is the inherent problem with trying to overlay our pay scale versus an a.p.d. Pay scale because we do not have the same pay administration, philosophies that the Austin police department has. And I believe that's the -- and that's the reason why you're going to see these differences is because we just don't know what the mid points are. And it not a true apples to apples comparison when you look at your tenured employees. So I appreciate the court's time and I'll stand for any questions.
>> questions?
>> when you mentioned the total amount of money for your package, 7-point--
>> 7.2?
>> is that the number that you're addressing that it would be a minimal tax increase?
>> no. I think depending on where the court would decide on what type of -- I think there's a -- if I remember, if I'm correct, the court's looking at several different options for the civilians and our compensation was included in it, so I believe if it was a six percent increase, then there's like 30eu million left to fully fund our proposal and if it's four percent then that number would be significantly more than 3 30eu. Freafers 3 30eu. 3 30eu. 3 -- 3 135es. 3.
>> judge and Commissioners, much has been said about a memorandum that was written by the tcohr director. And the court knows our position relating to that memorandum. We flat out disagree with practically everything that was written in the memorandum. We want to be clear about that. I would like to address one issue, though. And that was the comment or the statement in that memorandum written on July 24th that there was 1100 applicants in the sheriff's office. What that memorandum doesn't state is that out of the 1100 applicants, only 42 employees were hired. So that's 3 folk who were hired out of 1100. We disagree with the the fact that it's stated that we don't have a retention problem. We -- you can ask our members be and they'll tell you that we do have a retention problem. There was a period of time earlier this year where one of our sections in the corrections bureau was spending close to $60,000 every two weeks on overtime. And that was just one area of the corrections bureau. So I would beg to differ that we do not have a retention problem or recruitment problem. I'll turn my time over to debbie ridge.
>> hello. I'm patty ekrit, and on this project I've been representing the Travis County sheriff's officers association since about February. During that I'm I've looked almost every month at the number of vacancies for the pops positions within the sheriff's office. And just based on the numbers that we've added to the numbers that we've already been given, the thing that we've been given today, I would just point out that they seem to be about 30 vacancies at any one time in the pops portion of the sheriff's office vacancies.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> not today, but I don't know maybe I should talk in the hall. I just wanted to remind the court that health and human services prioritized the market salary for f.y. 2007 in our budget request, this particular survey impacts two-thirds of our department. And as the population continues to age, we are finding a bit of creep. I think a little more creep than we had anticipated with the market for these particular employees, but I think that we will continue to see creep as the population ages, from will be a demand for social workers, case managers and folks who can provide direct services, and so we have an opportunity to at least stay on par, I believe, with the market. We do have some real-time examples that we're starting to see in the way of social workers, especially when we are trying to recruit hispanic speaking social workers particularly. And in a recent hiring process, we've had applicants who have declined positions, one, to stay with current employer due to pay, and then one accepted a position and shared with us the pay they accepted was higher. That's been in recent weeks. While we are just beginning to see that trend, some funding toward the market salary would give us an opportunity to at least try to stay on par with the market. Thank you.
>> thank you. Anybody else wish to go take advantage of this?
>> if your last priority is performance, that's the last thing you are going to get. And I think it's important to recognize that stellar performers need to be recognized by this organization and we need to have some money to do that. The other thing is that the -- because of the employment market and the low unemployment rate that sheriff's people are exactly right. We have to live through the next year and so whatever money that departments get, they need to be able to deal with whatever happens during the year. And so it's important to know that, that if departments don't have money for performance, if they don't have some money to work with, if in fact you have -- one year I recall very sadly we lost our entire payroll division one year. It's something I didn't contemplate at the budget time. But you have to have the tools to deal with those kind of things to continue with your work. So I would support plan a or substitute 2, the blue and the yellow, and those are the 6% plans. I think they give departments options to make good decisions and for people to perform their services. So that would be my suggestion.
>> thank you.
>> questions? Okay. These will be our last speakers, these three. There are three more chairs. Come a long way and I really do appreciate your taking care of what, for the most part at least in the administrative family, are the people who are our front-line people, who greet our customers every day and tend to be among the lowest paid members of county government. So thank you for taking care of that group. And I know they appreciate it. I have one very quick point that I'd like to make to you, but I think it is important. One of the things that we talked about earlier was that if we were going to apply a cola, then would the court consider making the market yakt adjustment to the administrative family first and then applying the cola so that this group of employees would not basically miss out on the second round of cola based on proposalry. The proposal that you have here, as I understand it, and we've not had a lot of time to research it, is that the cola applies before the -- before their salaries are adjusted. We would very much appreciate it if you would consider making the salaries hold first and then whatever you can do for the cola for everybody, we would so much appreciate that. Thank you.
>> so cola as set forth in the market salary surveyor green circle?
>> it's before -- the calculation is before the market salary is applied. And what we would like to do is bring everybody up first, then see -- it will mean your calculation is a little different.
>> isn't it that the market salary survey, where one is in market, contemplates what the cost of living is in the market?
>> well, I think as a matter of theory I would agree with you. The problem is it's been so long since they have had a market correction that even with a cola application, it's still so much less than what people who already had a normal salary assigned to their position. I mean it's been several years so they are losing out on the money that they would have gotten had they had their salaries corrected earlier.
>> so are you saying that the market salaries for 2007 is now stale in regards to cost of living?
>> no, I wouldn't make that statement. No, not at all. My approach would be that if we're going to have across the board colas for everybody, let's make sure they are at the proposalry first and then what our budget allows, we would like to have the cola across the board, if the court chooses to do a cola. Of course, I think we've already mentioned that while everybody certainly appreciates a cola, we felt like the higher priority was to take care of these people who have been waiting.
>> okay.
>> okay. Thank you for the question.
>> I'm bruce elfant and we appreciate all the work h.r. Has done with us to look at the constable issues. We appreciate that they've recognized the difficulties that all the offices are having with hiring and retention, that we've fallen behind Williamson county, which is our closest comparable county and our competitor in terms of taking away good qualified constables. And that the recognition that deputy constables on the pop scale have received the smallest increase of any group of county employees over the last seven years. I feel like that the h.r. Recommendation is, given the constraints of the budget, is a reasonable downpayment for trying to get the constables where they ought to be. We would ask that you all would motion the h.r. To review the market with us after the budget is over and to review the chief deputy, the sergeant and the lieutenant positions so we can get them where they need to be. And the final issue that didn't come up in the recommendations which we had a pretty good discussion about last time was that of the soft pay for the civil process proficiency exam. We feel that is a benefit. It encourages our deputies to become proficient, pass the exam and, of course, they have more value to the county if they do pass that.
>> how much does it cost?
>> the civil process proficiency?
>> if we're looking at 150 a month so 1800 a year or if you do less, you know, you can do 1500 at 125 per month.
>> leroy, was that on the sheet?
>> I don't think we had that option presented to us. You have your compensation all --
>> I thought it was done during the public hearing. The budget hearing, I mean, that we had with them.
>> is there space on the last page for us to write it in?
>> bruce, I thought you mentioned --
>> the last time we visited with you all we did mention that.
>> I think --
>> we can add it to the h.r. Compensation work sheet.
>> and the amount.
>> yeah.
>> I thought it was a budget item.
>> that's all I have. We've made a good effort and we look forward to passing the budget and working with h.r. Afterwards to get these final issues resolved.
>> okay.
>> I just wanted to mention that we do come here as a group and we've had meetings together to try to arrive at what would be fair and equitable for our employees, so really bruce is speaking for all of us.
>> stacy
>> [inaudible] chief deputy constable 3. I have a couple of brief add-on points. Not only are we competing with Williamson county, we are competing with some of the smaller cities in Williamson county. There's several of them, their starting pay for their police officers, municipal police officers is higher than our senior deputy pay. So now we're at a disadvantage with Williamson county on both municipal and the county level. The other thing I would like to touch on briefly is as I firmly believe the chief deputy should be a non-pops position. It would be performance based. You should be able to bring someone in from outside. Bring in the best possible management the newly elected officials can get in recruit and having the chief deputy as a non-pops position would give the elected officials in the court the ability to recruit the people that you need to do that. A position for lieutenant needs to be created in the constable's office on pops and it needs to decide -- have h.r., direct h.r. To match it either to the corrections sergeant or law enforcement sergeant. And then our sergeants need to be matched at the same way either to a corrections sergeant or law enforcement sergeant. Right now as chief deputy my pay scale is less than a corrections sergeant. So you've got, you know, both bottom and top retention and recruitment levels with this current pay scale and that's the point I wanted to make.
>> chief and I are just here as resources. So we can see ourselves on t.v.
>> [laughter]
>> I have a quick question before you all go. From a policy perspective, I understand that constables can't bring in someone -- they have to bring them in at starting and work up through the ranks, irrespective of someone's previous experience.
>> that's correct.
>> what prevents us from doing it a different way? I mean should that policy remain and if it shouldn't, how do
>> [inaudible].
>> that's one of the issues I intended to bring up with h.r. After the budget was over, but there's several other issues relating to pop, but that was one of them. When I first got involved, when we had an opening, we had all kinds of applicants who had civil process experience. Today it's very rare we get anybody who has prior civil process experience. When we see someone who has 5 or 10 years of experience, we want to grab them, but they are not going to come in at the entry level when they've listen in law enforcement that long with that kind of experience. That is something that we would like to look at.
>> okay.
>> do you all still use the reserve officers?
>> yes.
>> they represent a pretty good pool from which to choose?
>> there's not a whole lot right now. We probably are three or four of them at best.
>> not as much as we would like. If anybody out there would like to become a reserve deputy, call us.
>> [laughter]
>> thank you.
>> thank you all.
>> carol guthrie with afsme. I would like to echo what ms. Dana debouvier was speaking about regarding applying the market first and then the cola. My understanding of how the market works on a pay grade, you have an entry and an end, right? And that's what the market pays for that particular position. But people have lost the ability to move on that range, and if you go in and apply the cola first, you may just be bringing somebody up to what they should have been getting paid all along. So in reality employees feel like they can never catch up. And so by reversing the recommendation and putting them at the right starting place and then applying the cola, it kind of helps them keep on that pay grade. It doesn't move them out of the range at all. But it allows them not to have lost for tenure, not to have lost pay for performance, not to have lost all those other increases that they were given throughout the year. So we would like for you to consider that during your deliberations. We also are supporting a cost of living across the board and some type of percentage to allow some flexibility for the departments to be able to continue to manage their compensation issues that they are -- that they've had a difficult time with over the past several years. So we'll hone that down a little bit, refine it to a better number as we move a little bit closer, but we certainly do like that little flexibility piece for the department directors as well. Okay? Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> we thank you all for coming today and sharing with us your comments and this will be at the top of our agenda when we start our budget markup on September 5th. Any closing comments on compensation? Then let's go to some of the other issues on the -- today's agenda.
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Last Modified:
Wednesday, August 22, 2007, 18:30 AM