Travis County Commissioners Court
June 17, 2008
Item 9
>> let's see if we can get to number 9 is consider and take appropriate action on proposed salary adjustment plan for recruitment and retention issues with maintenance and skilled trades. And is joe geiselman nearby?
>> good morning, judge and Commissioners. I'm executive manager for administrative operations. T.n.r. Brought forward a proposal to look at several job titles where they had encountered difficulty and recruitment and also very significant turnover rate. And we looked at those -- at those titles, and they were in the road maintenance and skilled trades family. What we did is looked at other titles that were similar. These are not all the job titles that are in road maintenance or skilled trades. There are several others that -- and our recommendation what we are saying is that we looked at the other than t.n.r. And the other departments with jobs that were very, very similar, and you see on page 3 of your backup t.n.r. Job titles you see comparable job titles. Building workers, custodian, custodian lead, building maintenance coordinators and several others that you have on that list. If you look at the pay grades, the pay grades are similar. We did an abbreviated market salary survey on those jobs and we found that they are indeed not in market, that they are indeed being paid below what we found market. And I'm going to turn the presentation over now to linda Moore smith and her staff. She is director of h.r. And they will go over some of the data in terms of their research and the market, which means what other companies or agencies are paying for these same employees. That is the job market and what we match to.
>> real briefly you will see on page 2 of your backup information that shows each of the job families that these titles are included within. As well as the average pay rate and the average local pay rate. Travis County's local pay rate. For the general road maintenance, Travis County's average pay rate is 12.29 per hour. The average local pay rate is $15.52 per hour, which, of course, indicates that Travis County is 26% behind local -- the average local pay rate in that job family. As well as the skilled trades, the average pay rate within Travis County is $13.45. The average local pay rate is $16.46. Which indicates, of course, a percentage of 22.3% behind our local market. With this, we are as a department recommending to you as a result of this study that any pay adjustment that is done at this time on these titles would be quite appropriate. We do not anticipate that it would put them in a position of being overly paid to the market, but instead significantly impact the challenges and issues of recruiting and retention that we're having at this time. The recommendations are noted here. If you choose to make the pay actions effective immediately, we would also recommend that all of the titles within each of these job families be reviewed in f.y. '09 to direct us to complete work on all of the titles in that fiscal year. I don't know if you want me to go through the recommendations that are listed here because there are some others that are related to what we're bringing before you.
>> 1 through 4 on page 2?
>> exactly. 5 and 6 are basically statements, but the recommendations are 1 through 4.
>> move approval of 1 through 4 with a $2 per hour pay increase.
>> second.
>> at this time applicable to t.n.r. Have the other departments indicated whether they have salary savings? Yes, sir. Facilities management --
>> hold on. Let me clarify one thing. If we flip over and see the departments listed, all indicate they have salary savings to cover these increased costs. The rest of this fiscal year.
>> yes, sir.
>> my motion --
>> I missed that part of the presentation, judge. We did confirm with all of the departments that they do have salary savings to cover it.
>> these are all of the departments covered in section a and section b on page 3.
>> that's correct.
>> what was the motion, judge?
>> that's facilities management, the sheriff's office, as well as juvenile probation. And there is one minor adjustment with juvenile probation. We were notified there was one slot we had missed in our numbers that needed to be added to the list. So if you would choose to modify your backup under the $2 rate, your total at $2 would be 125,616. That's under table c. And then -- we won't address the $1 adjustment, but the $2 adjustment is the 125,616.
>> motion is to approve recommendations 1 through 4 with 2instead of 1.
>> that's for the t.n.r., for the maintenance?
>> we were shown during work session on a lot of them the average below market is really in the $3 range.
>> that's correct.
>> and then, judge, that would be --
>> effective July 1. If we could --
>> right.
>> judge, does your motion also cover the section b comparable titles? Which page 4 indicates those departments have salary savings to cover those, in section b.
>> is that part of the recommendation?
>> yes, it is.
>> that covers it. That's included. Now, for us, the fiscal impact is a Commissioners court budget issue for '09. But these departments can pick up this cost immediately through the end of this fiscal year. Effective July 1.
>> uh-huh. I have a question regarding the turnover rate.
>> okay. Let's see if there is a question regarding the motion. Yes.
>> debbie rich, sheriff's office. We have nine positions listed on here. However, we just had a reorganization recently within our maintenance section that included these job titles so there's actually other slots. I didn't get a chance to run them. I apologize. I was out of town last week. But I would like the opportunity to work with h.r. Because we had the the p.a.f.s have gone in moving people into proper job titles now, so I would like to be able to bring those back and get them the same thing. They all have these job titles. They were just underfiled while we were doing a reorg.
>> request granted. If you get together and bring it back to us at the appropriate time for us to consider.
>> thank you.
>> is it still open for discussion?
>> yes, Commissioner eckhardt, then you.
>> on page 1 under issues and challenges, a, it indicates that these selected titles, and I'm assuming when you say these selected titles, that's section a and b, are at 13.5% turnover rate over the average over the last three years. What I would suggest -- I would suggest that we adopt a two-prong test to take job families out of the four-year cycle. If we're taking them out of order, that those job families should show that they are at 75% or greater -- that they have a 75% greater turnover rate than the county-wide turnover rate averaged over three years as a threshold matter. These job families have an even higher -- they are at 81.2% higher than the average turnover rate currently. But I think that should be a threshold test that then moves to a second prong that there are at least 20% below the average local pay rate. Otherwise we could have a circumstance where job families are coming and demanding to be taken out of the rotation and taken earlier, and we won't have an objective standard to decide whether -- it's truly an extraordinary circumstance. I think this is clearly an extraordinary circumstance, and these job families far exceed that test.
>> needs to be brought back in a separate item.
>> we can do that.
>> 20%.
>> I'm suggesting 75% higher turnover rate than the three-year average for the county at large. And also 20% below the average local pay rate. And the reason why I'm suggesting it in that order is that we can look at turnover rate in-house rather quickly without having to do any additional outside inquiry. And if they meet that prong, then you go to the second prong of a many market salary survey to see if they are 20% below local market which requires an effort, some resources, some time. So that's why I'm suggesting it in that order.
>> any discussion of the motion?
>> you know, I wasn't through.
>> yes, sir.
>> I just wanted to ask this particular question. Number 1, motion carries and the effective date is July 1, when will the persons, the $2 a-hour increase, which will they actually see that on their paycheck.
>> July 31st.
>> July 31st. I want to make sure that's -- pardon? July 31st. All right. Secondly, since we have made this adjustment, it would be good to look at how we track what we have done. In other words, if it's having an impact, we would like to see that turnover rate decrease instead of increase. So it would be good, I think, for us to monitor the turnover rate to see where we are after this motion if this motions passes, which I think it will. Thank you. Those are my two concerns at this point.
>> thank you. Mr. Powell.
>> just a quick comment on Commissioner eckhardt's criteria, which seems reasonable that the department is going to do that kind of due diligence before they come to the court. You did indicate when you originally talked about the second prong of doing kind of a mini market survey that that would be a survey of the local market as opposed to this kind of full-blown thing that we do which includes private, you know, studies and various counties and so forth. And I think that the emphasis on local pay market is important because that is, you know, city of Austin and state of Texas are certainly our immediate and major competitors for these positions as opposed to tarrant county. We don't know too many custodians that leave Austin to go to dallas for a dollar increase.
>> although I just want to clarify that. This would be a criteria to decide whether to take the job family out of order.
>> yes, ma'am.
>> I'm not suggesting that the second prong is the only criteria under which we would set the ultimate change in salary. Because for some job families there would be -- it would be appropriate to have the broader market salary survey to truly peg their salary. For maintenance workers, we're not attracting maintenance workers from dallas, no. So the local -- the local pay rate is what's interesting to me. But if we were to have a job family of, say, engineers that was --
>> they still are not posted for the policy discussion today.
>> okay.
>> we'll post for specific -- specific jobs and specific actions.
>> although this -- this was --
>> but it's not -- what you are recommending makes sense to me as a permanent policy to be applied in the future. We are not posted for that.
>> very good.
>> they are all good points and the court probably needs to see a draft policy for us to consider, and as soon as that can be brought back, I'm ready to do it, but we need an appropriate posting.
>> but I guess along the same lines that are related to why t.n.r. Brought this to the court was that there was turnover and there was the vacancy rate. Is that true of the other departments that are involved here?
>> yes.
>> okay. So you are also losing groundskeepers to the city of Austin?
>> we're -- the groundskeepers are a small unit that if you look at those, we do have a high --
>> you have vacancies there.
>> we don't have vacancies, we have a turnover rate.
>> this weekend I sent members of the court an e-mail indicating the financial implications, kind of where we are on the f.y. '09. The f.y. '09 cost of the motion that's on the floor is 852,606. And those are not in our current projections unless you fund that from the compensation reserve that we currently have in our projections at $6.8 million.
>> or come up with another source of funding.
>> or come up with another source of funding. In looking at the f.y. '08 impact, the 852,000 would be for three months, I think we're talking. It would be about 213,000, which would be funded from within the departments and the fund balance would drop by a corresponding amount. The -- one question that probably once the court starts talking about compensation is whether or not these classifications will participate in the cola, whatever cola there will be for all rank and file. And that's something that can be decided at a later date.
>> if this motion passes, they would be eligible.
>> that was one of the motions.
>> there are four specific recommendations included in the motion. We need to get you exactly --
>> I just wanted to point out that we're currently about $2 million in balance on the general fund between ongoing and one-time, and this would push it to around 3 million.
>> your point is that it has significant future fiscal impact the court should be aware of.
>> that's right.
>> we need you to start working on that revenue course.
>> we're working on it. There are some positive signs, but every time we find one positive, we seem to find some counter balancing ones. Is good news is that interest rates are going up. And I think that is positive news for some people that aren't borrowing, especially those of us that are investing the county's money. So we look for some relief there.
>> it's on days like that that we're glad we have a planning and budget office. Susan?
>> I just briefly talked to my revenue estimators to see if they find anything -- they are still working on the second revenue estimate, but we are not seeing good news there. Just so you know that. We're not seeing good news. We're not seeing the protests. We are reducing that number from a million by 220,000. We're going to add that in. That's a piece of good news. But we're not seeing anything in the horizon that's going to boost that revenue estimate, just f.y.i.
>> in the upcoming budget, ain't no doubt in anybody's mind sitting on this dais we have some real struggles, but I feel we can work some things out. I really do.
>> one of the big assumptions -- they are overall collection rate. And we're honestly not going to be able to have a good beat on that until we see the certified value in July. So, you know, it's possible at that time we say we loosen that up and that would make a difference, but I don't see that before that.
>> mid-july or last part of July?
>> mid-july.
>> July 25th.
>> is when they certify the roll. Witness we see where things are, protests are still going -- we're trying to get our arms around that and it's too early to have an accurate picture on that. But I'm nol seeing things that are going to be positive on this revenue estimate at this point. No catastrophes.
>> these are some of our hardest working and lowest paid employees and clearly they are way below the local market, which is why immediate action is justified, in my view. And then we did insist that the departments be able to pick up the costs for the rest of this fiscal year internally. But we basically are accepting responsibility for meeting it next year and thereafter and it's another challenge. So we do have some options, as we always do. Hopefully the picture will be a bit -- the revenue picture will be a bit rosier between now and when we start markup. It may be that we don't have a reason to have a whole lot of hearings during markup especially if there is not a lot of revenue available. But I think some of these critical needs we have to go ahead and try to meet if we can.
>> I agree, judge.
>> that's why you make the big bucks, mr. N ellis. All in favor? That passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you all.
>> those are all the compensation -- can we cover those in 14 minutes?
>> may I ask on number 3 that we just approved, are we saying eligible for p.b.p. And cola?
>> yes. If cola is --
>> the expectation is that they would be eligible for cola.
>> may not be any performance pay anyway based on revenue picture. But I think on a-3, if we just discussed these today so we can lay them out there, if they are real easy, we'll take action, if not we need to think about them.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 17, 2008 2:31 PM