Travis County Commissioners Court
June 2, 2009,
Item 17C
>> 17-c, consider and take appropriate action on the following, request from constable precinct three for an exception to Travis County code chapter 10.0295-h-4, peace officer pay scale.
>> good morning.
>> good morning.
compensation manager louann shaw in hr and d.
and the constable in request and exception to the pops scale, which includes the opportunity for the employees to receive cpp certified pay at the time of the beginning of the fiscal year rather than during the fiscal year.
so the exception today that they're requesting your approval is to have this begin at such time they're a new hire at the beginning of their hire date or if they receive the certification during the fiscal year.
so if they pass the certification in February or April, then they would like that to begin on those dates rather than waiting to the beginning of the fiscal year as the chapter 10 policy states.
>> does the department have the money in the budget?
>> yes.
p.
bo has -- pbo has confirmed funding for the seven slots that we did reflect in the backup.
>> and do the other departments, the other constables, have they made requests for this exception?
>> I did sme with each of the -- I did speak with each of the constables last week and they did indicate that for all of the remaining constables in addition to precinct three, there would be an estimate number of nine additional slots.
>> and what would be the cost for the nine additional slots through September of this year?
>> we did confirm that with pbo this morning, the cost would be 4500 additional dollars.
>> do the other constables have sufficient resources within their -- this year's budget to cover that?
>> randy in pbo did confirm that they have the internal funding.
>> would it be hr's recommendation to change this policy then?
>> as we did indicate in the backup, we are working right now with the -- all the other non-tco pops departments as well as the tco to recommend any other changes in the policy and bring that forward to you before the fiscal year.
and this would be one section that we are considering recommending to change so that the policy has those -- all of the skill-based pay because all the other sections have the skill-based pay begin when they receive the -- when they're assigned, if they're assigned an fto or if they're assigned the bilingual begins after we do the testing in the springtime.
so it's -- but there is an indication, though, that it's effective with the discretion of that elected official.
it is clearly stated in the policy.
>> so this is the only skill-based certification that kicks in at the budget year rather than at the time of -- okay.
because my only concern is we've been down this road before where we made an ad hoc change saying it was only going to cost $4,500, and then bam, a bunch of other people came and said, well, I have a very similar situation and it's a question of equity that you give me the same deal.
so are we sure that the whole universe of this exception is this $4,500 as well as the current request?
>> I would have to say their estimate numbers from what the constables spoke to me on.
>> I would feel more comfortable changing the policy than excepting everyone from it.
>> the information -- hi.
good morning.
the information that you have -- that I have before me, maybe you don't have, is in fact a survey that we did with the con tables, constable one, two, three, four and five.
and the information that they gave us were for two months for constable one at one thousand from June to September.
eight pay periods.
then we went on with the rest of them.
and there were nine total, and that was $4,500.
so that's the estimate that we have.
and that was from a poll we actually took of the con tables.
>> but -- constables.
>> but my question is are there other policies like this that will later come to the Commissioners court and say, you did -- you excepted all of the constables from a standing policy, and therefore we want you to treat us similarly under another standing policy.
because we had that circumstance, remember, when we did the across the board pay increase and we just didn't identify the full universe of its effect.
>> sure.
and the difference is that this is policy based.
we are not aware of any other policy.
the other was more an ad hoc policy that was created, not a policy that already existed.
>> well, then, --
>> the existing policies.
>> it's not because I don't agree with what the constables are asking.
i totally do.
i am not going to vote in favor of this today because I feel that we need to clearly change the policy.
i would prefer to change the policy first than to except one constable's office from a policy only to anticipate that all of the others will ask for an exception from the policy, indicating therefore that the policy should be changed.
i would like to instead do it in an up front way and simply change the policy.
which I'm happy to entertain as soon as possible.
>> let me ask this question.
i guess there are exceptions that we look at as we go through the year, and we just had another one exception, I guess it was 17-b, of this item.
and of course, I think we approved that exception.
the funds were available and the funds were there, and of course, we allow for the exception.
and whether it came from temporary savings or salary savings or however the department did it, it was done, they had to fund it.
my concern is the funding aspect availability of funds in the department.
not countering anything that the Commissioner is saying.
i think she's right on point with a lot of stuff.
however, I'm concerned about the funding aspect of it, and on top of that, on top of that exceptions as far as looking at this, whether it's policy or whomever asked, especially to have the internal mechanism to fund it.
i'm still concerned and I'm going to keep laying it out as much as I possibly can, and that is the budget as it comes up, you know, the preliminary budget will be laid out here pretty soon.
and a lot of these things may have an impact on the next incoming budget because once you do stuff, there's a ratchet up effect and we have to look at those things when you ratchet up or go forward.
so I'm concerned about a lot of moving parts as we get ready to go into the budget cycle.
and again, I want to get my hands on hot off the press the preliminary budget which should be made available to us pretty soon.
that way I can get a clear picture, a clearer picture of a lot of things that are going o right now this is kind of piecemeal, but we'll piecemeal things throughout the year when there are situations within departments that they need adjusting, but on and on.
it's not that they're asking us to fund it outside the department means.
anyway, that's -- everyone has different takes on this stuff.
and -- but the money is there from what I understand.
>> yes, sir, that's our understanding too.
because there's such small amounts.
for example, constable four and five only have one individual, and that would be $500 that they would need for the rest of the year from June through September.
and even less July through September.
and for the other constables one, two and three, it's a -- one, two, it's a thousand dollars.
and then constable three is 1500.
and really constable -- I'm sorry, constable three is more than that.
it probably the largest one.
>> either we need to rook at them this one basket and see which one we approve.
i don't want to get to that position which we choose, which exception what we need to do, especially if they're all similar.
if they're all similar, internally funded, that's one category.
if it's not, of course, those are individual decisions that have to be made on how we fund things.
we have to make the calls up here in kind of a disparate disposition when you have to pick and choose like that.
approve one exception and then don't approve the next one.
>> our question is if you approve it for one, you approve it for all.
>> but that's not what's posted today.
>> would the staff be able to bring back in a week a policy change?
>> if we know the other constables are coming with a similar request, we should change the policy.
>> one thing as an overview on this, is when we were moving this -- when this thing got moved forward last budget cycle and the cycle before last, part of the deal was the costs of first year cost of it, so this date got put in, and we piecemealed it in the beginning and now we're paying the price on the back side because we piecemealed it.
and our deal is just like if we're hiring someone new and we tell them that we're going to bring you in at a certain step based on Travis County policy, if you qualify for a peace officer pay on your -- based on your license, if you pass a test for bilingual, we'll pay for that, all this pay should trigger when you hire someone.
that's part of your recruitment when you're hiring quality people is the other soft pay that you add into it.
and then that -- and all this stuff should trigger at the same time.
and then if you have existing employees, it would just tend to follow on the equity issue, if you're bringing the new hires in, them paying them, that they should trigger when they bm eligible like all the other pays.
so we're just standardizing the soft pay when it triggers.
>> any objection to just changing policy next week?
>> yes.
>> that's what I say and just the policy change.
i would address the budget.
the reason we made it effective at the beginning of the next fiscal year is so we could address the increase during the budget process.
so the effective date and the budget should be addressed in the policy amendment.
>> okay.
we will also double-check with all the constables to make sure that they have the funding.
we believe that at these small amounts they probably do, but we'll double-check.
>> okay.
we'll have it back on next week with the appropriately changed wording.
all right?
>> that's June ninth.
we will only have three here next week, but it looks like we're saying the same thing anyway.
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:
Tuesday, June 2, 2009 2:00 PM