Travis County Commissioners Court
June 23, 2009,
Item 6
>> 6.
receive briefing, discuss and give staff direction regarding the process and schedule for developing the advertisement for the public hearing to set elected officials' salaries for fiscal year 2010.
>> good morning.
>> belinda powell from the budget and planning office.
you have a memo in front of you to start the process setting the elected officials salaries for fiscal 2010, one of the things that you need consideration for the budget cycle currently there are no allocations for increased compensation in your budget parameters.
that will be discussed later.
therefore, there is no legal requirement to post an advertisement and hold a public hearing related to increasing elected officials salaries if you choose not to have one.
we can go through the process of posting the ad for you to review that would show no increase if you would like to hold a public hearing, but there's not a requirement bylaw for you to do that.
that was the first item that we wanted to discuss with you to get feedback on whether or not you wanted to come back next week with an ad, a draft ad to show no increases to elected officials salaries.
>> let me ask a question on that.
by law, by law we do or do not have to post a notice for elected officials, a public hearing for elected officials to have a salary -- we send a notice out by law, I'm trying to figure out what the deal is.
>> you are not required to hold the public hearing.
you would -- the judge's office would, as they do every year, give official notice to the elected officials to -- to initiate a grievance process, but there's not a requirement to hold a public hearing if there's no salary increase.
>> but I guess my question, though, let's say that not for me, I'll tell you what I'm going to do as an elected official, I'm going to freeze, I'm not going to take a salary increase period.
i don't know what the other elected officials are going to do, so what format would be the format whereby if other elected officials in Travis County would like to have a pay increase, how does that work is this that's what I'm trying to get to.
>> you go through the normal grievance process that starts with a notification from the judge's office of the salaries that are set for the next fiscal year.
and that starts the calendar for the grievance process and they file letters directly to the judge's office and we will call the clerk's office calls the grievance panel together and they look at the information from the individual elected official and make a recommendation to the Commissioners court and the Commissioners court takes action during the normal grievance process.
the actual requirement to hold a public hearing is triggered by an actual increase that you are advertising for notification to the public that you are contemplating increasing the salaries.
and this year, as we have moved through the budget process, there isn't currently allocation for that to occur, so we wanted to ask the question, do you want to post a public hearing for no increase when it's not required bylaw.
>> okay.
>> move to authorize the county judge to send the appropriate letter to the elected officials indicating that the Commissioners court will not propose pay increases because of lack of resources.
>> second.
>> therefore we will not have a public hearing this year.
>> second that.
>> discussion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
will you all draft an appropriate letter for me.
>> thank you very much.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 1:31 PM