Travis County Commissioners Court
July 7, 2009,
Item 19
Number 19 is discuss the bilingual supplemental pay policy for classified employees and take appropriate action.
>> good morning, court.
after two weeks of working with departments on the item which is listed in the agenda to discuss bilingual supplemental pay policy for classified employees and take appropriate action.
we had discussed the pilot program with you a few weeks ago and have offered to and provided you with backup and supplemental information.
i will indicate before we provide the supplemental information that staff has two recommendations for you to consider today as you listen to the feedback.
one is that the Commissioners court suspend the bilingual supplemental pay policy as it currentlyly exists and to reconsider it during a time when the economic climate is in a much better status.
the second recommendation is to authorize a transfer of $455 to pay for the testing that we've completed to date.
and these recommendations are really based on the fact that the supplemental research that was completed by the department really revealed a significant demand that we felt was supported by the recommendation that we have offered to suspend it for the next fiscal year.
>> okay.
$455 in hrmd's budget that we can transfer from one line item into this one?
>> we can check and see.
if not, we'll be back to the court with the recommendation.
>> $455, I don't think we want to see you come back to court.
>> find it.
>> we'll find it.
>> thank you.
>> and I'm all right with the recommendation.
the only thing I wonder is do we have a system where we go back when the economy gets better, do we have a way of going back and picking up these issues that need to be brought forward again?
we don't have one?
>> may I make a suggestion on that?
>> sure.
>> perhaps we should charge the compensation committee with looking at the pay determination guide with regard to how bilingualism as it relates to specific job functions is compensated so we get a standardized policy or at least a recommendation for a standardized policy.
>> that can work, but I think we need to bring back so we can compare.
i'm just concerned that it not be dropped.
that it doesn't drop through the cracks and that's when the time is right we bring it back.
>> if the backup was presented to me correctly, it appears that Travis County is the only county that have offered this type of assistance as far as bilingual assistance as far as some of the major counties are concerned.
harris county, fort worth, dallas, bexar counties, counties that do not offer this particular service.
is that correct?
>> that's correct.
>> all right.
well, and then on the cities, it appears that the major cities of these counties are offering this service.
>> that's also correct.
>> you mean like Austin, san antonio, dallas, fort worth.
>> houston.
>> are offering this type of service, but there's no -- apparently no county in the state of Texas that's -- that's offering this service.
is that correct?
am I reading this right?
>> there are none of our typical county comparables that are offering the service at this time.
>> there's -- could you repeat that because I'm sorry, I didn't understand you.
>> yes.
the standard comparables that we look at, bexar, tarrant, harris, Williamson, they do not offer the bilingual supplemental pay at this time.
>> well, can you tell me why?
can somebody tell me why other counties aren't offering it?
the cities within the counties are offering it and yet the counties are not?
can somebody tell me why or have they found out why tarrant and dallas and harris and bexar county right down the road is not offering the service?
can someone find out that answer for me?
>> we can -- I'm trying to see how or what are they doing at the county's perspective, are they dove-tailing into the cities within the county?
i'm looking for the mechanism of how they are dealing that.
and right now I'm not -- I'm seeing what you put down, but I can't get -- I can't get the nexus of it.
can somebody --
>> the question, Commissioner, that we raised with those entities was whether or not they were currently providing supplemental pay.
i think your question is valid question and one that if this is indeed put before the compensation committee to study it, to bring it back, that we can certainly ask questions.
>> I really would like to know how they are doing that.
>> exactly.
>> the major cities within an urban county and the county is not doing it.
per se.
can we get an answer to that?
>> we can certainly -- we can certainly explore that question and get an answer for you.
>> I'd like to have an answer.
thank you.
i don't know how long it will take you, but I would like to have that answer.
how they do that.
>> several key points need to be made so can you all just go ahead and make your presentation?
in other words, the highlights of the backup.
>> certainly.
we were able to get a 95% response rate from the departments in terms of looking at the fiscal year 2010 projections and found there was significant demand, so to speak, or projected demand for bilingual supplemental pay.
in fact, 451 slots would be participating or would be requested for participating.
52% of departments would participate.
some of them were able to find the testing fee at $65 versus the supplemental pay and some other departments were able to fund the supplemental pay but not the testing fee.
so there's slight difference in the numbers there, but the total projected cost for these 451 slots for f.y.
10 would be -- excluding benefits.
we did find as expected that the larger department, some of the larger departments had a more significant need.
for example, the sheriff's office requested projected 92 slots.
hhs 61.
juvenile probation 58.
a lot of positions were in the administrative support family, county -- excuse me, court clerks, counselors that is correct type of thing.
and there was an increasing need for -- inkeys awareness that bilingual is becoming increasingly important.
in terms of the actual feedback from the departments, there were departments that had significant concerns about internal equity, about those who participate, those that don't.
inadequate funding and to be able to meet the needs, you know, the selection of two slots versus the need that they had.
the increasing need for bilingual skills.
the varied pay practices was one of the significant factors.
the pay determination guide is sometimes being used to recognize bilingualism by department and in various ways and prior to that in 2003 we had the actual matrix which allowed you to have a level credit up to one level credit for an additional special skill such as bilingualism.
there were also concerns that even if departments had initially given additional compensation above minimum of the pay grade, that some departments felt like that particular pay had eroded over time with the different implementation strategies for market surveys and so forth.
so there was that comment too.
and in basically a challenge to resolve the consistency -- inconsistency between pay determination guide and what various departments were doing and the possible bilingual supplemental pay practices.
and there was a stated preference in some departments cases to continue what they are actually doing now.
some departments that we spoke with actually -- anyone who walked in the door, so to speak, that had bilingual skills was recognized and compensated additionally for bilingual skills because under the theory -- and I'm paraphrasing -- there may be a need at any point in time to assist in that area.
while others were extremely stringent in their supplemental pay issues and practices for bilingual pay, and some had their own internal test, some did not.
there's a lot of variation in what is currently being done.
this was also apparent in the audit results.
you all have asked us to bring forward an audit of the sample of new hires and we are not able to isolate the compensation for which departments for which spots specifically compensating and how much they were compensating because of the nature of the pay determination guide.
there may be multiple reasons for providing that additional compensation and so forth, but there was -- the audit did reveal that there was no consistency across departments in what the current pay practices for bilingual are.
>> so are the departments able to distinguish between employees who will be required to use the second language from those who may be required to use the second language?
>> I believe from the feedback that we received that there was difficulty in determining that.
also what one department may believe is the need versus another department varied also.
so that was a significant issue that I think departments were trying to resolve.
>> the numbers that were presented from the respondents, the t.s.o.
number was 92, the numbers that are listed here, we had requested departments identify only those slots where the bilingual skill would be used in the performance of the job.
so --
>> well, will be used or required to be used routinely?
>> routine.
those were the numbers that we were looking for.
the slots that would routine -- pardon me?
>> that's the way the question was worded.
>> yes.
yes.
that is the way the question was worded or the way we were communicating it to the departments.
so the numbers that we have here that's yielding the total slots of 451 is not every individual who actually speaks spanish or has the bilingual skill, but it's those that they identify would be using them in their particular positions.
and what we have here and carlot the ta did mention a large number of positions that interface with the public.
many are counseling type positions, others relate to the administrative support type titles.
we have investigators here, the victim witness counselors that are all included with the numbers that have been presented within the survey that we have before you.
the survey results.
>> I see the d.a., but I don't see the county attorney.
we didn't get a response from county attorney?
>> no, sir, we did get a response rate.
i think there were very few developments and most of them were small their did not respond.
the county attorney -- we used the cutoff of 20 or more to just list the respondents with the largest number of slots.
so county attorney was definitely responded, but actually they were one of the departments, and I don't know if they are here today, but they were one of the departments that did routinely -- that does routinely compensate for bilingual skill if you have it as a new hire.
>> yeah, and that's the one that -- I know there's a need there because I see it on the third floor almost daily.
but they -- so if you are 20 or less, you are not on this list?
>> correct.
>> so this is tip of the iceberg.
>> you included in the number but we didn't list your department in this actual summary report.
for example, civil courts I believe this 17.
and so we just used the cutoff just to give you a flavor for.
>> so 451 is the aggregate, in if lower part of the table those numbers don't add up to 451.
>> correct.
>> I see.
>> I'm just curious, is there any other language needs out there than those looked at because we certainly have a strong asian community and I don't know what the demands are for that.
>> what we have gotten feedback from our health and human services department as well as others that actually the private services are accessed for the need for translation in the asian skill as well as other types of languages.
what we find most need for is, of course, spanish.
and when there -- even the american sign language we have alternatives that we access for those translation skills that's needed.
>> so the -- if we add $455 as requested, that will be tests for how many?
employees.
>> grand total of 35 employees, I believe, would have been tested.
>> have already been tested.
>> have already been tested.
>> that's to reimburse or go ahead and cover that -- that expense which has already been undertaken.
>> yes.
>> what I'm still trying to get to and still kind of puzzling me and I don't like to be puzzled, not very long, anyway, is how the other counties are getting by without having this service and the cities within these counties are providing the service.
that's -- that's a disconnect there some kind of way.
and if so, the funding from the cities, you know, such as Austin, san antonio, dallas, fort worth, houston, Round Rock, those cities have a direct tie-in with the counties that they are within to provide the service, how does that work?
somehow it's not coming to me.
you know, and how much money do these particular cities spend with that?
and I'm quite sure some of these counties probably have some of the same situations that we do in travis.
what makes dallas and houston and Williamson and tarrant, harris, bexar, what makes them counties any different than travis?
something is not adding up here.
can somebody help me, please?
>> yes, sir, I can address that.
having worked both in massachusetts and in Texas with bilingual and diverse communities, what happens is when you have a great population of diversity, they usually gather in cities because that's where the jobs are.
so the trend towards funding bilingual education are assisting cities in offering bilingual services has always had genesis in urban areas, which are cities.
that's why you see so many more cities.
in terms of the counties, as I understand it, there may be counties -- in south Texas you really don't pay for that service because there's so many people that speak it, that are working for you.
so we can kind of leave those counties out.
in other parts of Texas, you don't have that many hispanics and -- or people that speak only spanish.
and if you do, the counties don't provide the services because there is just not that great of population.
in the urban counties, you may have areas where they already compensate like we did for that particular skill, bilingual skill.
and we would have to do a specific survey of all the counties to see where they are at or how they pay or some of them maybe don't pay for bilingual skills.
but it could be that they compensate them like we did as part of their -- the skills when they come into a job, they say bilingual is a skill and so therefore we are going to add a certain amount to your pay.
but we have to do a specific survey to find out.
>> well, I guess, alicia, my concern is looking at the counties that do not pay.
i'm saying do not pay.
and I see bexar county, which is right down -- you know, right down the road.
williamson county, which is right above us.
and those other counties like tarrant, you know, around dallas and all, dallas county and harris county that do not pay for this service.
and I guess my question is I'm still trying to determine -- and I guess I'm still trying to determine how they get around not using it.
>> they use it, sir.
it's how they compensate for it.
>> how do they compensate for it.
>> that we would have to do the research.
>> I'd like to see that again.
i really would like to see that.
>> okay.
do we have a bilingual supplemental pay policy in place today?
>> we have an informal policy that was approved -- I say informal.
a bilingual pay pilot program that was approved by the court in August the 5th of 2008.
>> okay, but did we actually formally adopt a policy?
>> you did adopt -- when you say formally adopt a policy, that's what we carried forth as the pilot you approved.
as a part of code, no.
>> but we were considering adopting a policy --
>> based on.
>> -- when you came back two or three weeks ago.
so instead of suspending the bilingual supplemental pay policy, what we really want to do is place that on hold until later.
see what I'm saying?
and there are -- some questions have been asked that will require that we collect additional information so when this matter is brought back to us hopefully the information is there and we will see.
now, when you look at the total, though, the impact is a whole lot greater than I thought it would be up front.
there's no way for us to do this without adding benefits, right?
and if you add 18% to a little bit more than 400,000, you are in the half a million dollar range.
>> exactly.
>> I guess are we sure that the 450 or so represents the number of employees required to use the second language to carry out their duties at Travis County?
we ask that question in such a way that department supervisors should have understood.
>> I feel that we did.
now, there's -- I think that we did do that because we were focused specifically on exactly what you directed us to do which was to get those numbers.
>> because I have those in counties from time to time myself, but it's really like -- it's almost once or twice a month.
but there are people in the office who speak spanish who are asked to interpret.
>> yeah.
>> and without them, I have to go next door down the hall to get somebody.
but I don't know that once or twice a month was what we had in mind.
i think we had in mind more routine interpreting than that.
and I can understand how some of the other offices it would happen almost every day.
>> now, it could very well be that with the discussion that departments might would take a look at how their work is planned.
did we go into that as we requested the numbers from the department for the information that we have here, the question was those that are required to use it in their day to day job function.
how departments plan around that, we could not go into that level of planning or discussing those plans with the departments on how maybe their work assignments could be rearranged or whatever all of that might would involve in terms of reducing the numbers.
the question was those required to use the skill as a part of their daily functions.
>> the thing is that you don't reduce the number of population.
when you have 35 to 50% of your population, 35% I think according to census and probably higher, that is of hispanic origin, you still continue to have immigration.
and I think what we said is regularly communicating in spanish as a function of the daily officially assigned duties as justified business need for the department.
one of the things you could look at also is making the test tougher to where people will have to read and write.
is that a requirement of each of these --
>> I'm not trying to weed people out.
i'm just trying to make sure -- I'm just trying to make sure that we quantify to the extent possible regularly using the language to carry out your duties.
if it were -- if it were a lot more, you know, frequent in my office, I'd feel that I was unfairly treating the person doing the interpreting.
once or twice a month, I don't know that I -- I don't feel guilty.
i go home, I sleep comfortably every night.
but if there's a day may come that one or two becomes 10, 12 times a day, that's different.
>> if you look at these offices, judge, t.s.o., they have a lot of victim counselors, a lot of office personnel.
you have a lot of civilians in jail, you know, dealing with jail and counselors and, you know, a lot of your medical people that will probably need hhs, the same thing with all their centers.
so if you really -- the d.a.
if you look at some of these numbers and given the sort of population that they serve and the volume of population, you know, it doesn't seem too far out of whack that we can be more specific about questioning them in terms of how they use them.
>> well, if we tie our followup action to an improved economy, we may have 12 to 24 months to work with anyway.
and I guess I'm trying to achieve a higher level of comfort on just that one thing, that in fact we will be compensating those who provide additional service to Travis County.
not those in a position to do so.
and to a great extent we have to defer to the judgment of supervisors, but we control how we ask the question.
>> yes.
>> and so if we're comfortable that we've asked it the right way, we have to live with this number.
if we're not, we have plenty of time to go back and find out.
mr.
collins.
y'all are in that 20 or less category, by the way.
>> well, I heard that on t.v.
watching upstairs and I thought maybe there might be a little confusion.
i completely agree that the question was asked in a way that made it clear that they were looking for responses about employees who used out a regular basis.
not just employees who could speak spanish and could be called upon to use it, but those who used it on a regular basis.
our problem was that we don't have any particular slot, slot 163 is not designated as a slot that requires someone to be bilingual.
but, for example, on our victim witness coordinatorrers, the job description indicates that spanish bilingual is preferred.
and whenever we can, we hire victim witness coordinators who speak spanish because out of our -- I don't remember, 14 or so victim witness coordinators, we need to have a substantial number of those who speak spanish, but we don't have four of those 14 designated as spanish speaking slots.
but I feel confident that we've got at least four or five victim witness coordinators who do speak spanish and we keep that level and they do use it every day.
so we were not able to respond by saying here are these four victim witness slots that are required to speak spanish to perform their job because the next person that fills that slot may not speak spanish and someone -- a slot filled by an english speaker, nonbilingual, may get filled by a spanish speaker when we replace that slot.
we actually have 40 or 45 people in our office who are bilingual or at least self-reported that they are bilingual, and we frequently use many of those.
i would suspect if you were to ask us out of all the slots that we have do we need more than 20 who speak spanish, our response would be, well, yes, of course we do.
and we have over 20, we have over 40 who speak spanish and we are able to call on them.
to a certain extent the survey didn't really fit the way we function, and it may be that's true in our offices.
that we weren't -- we need certainly more than 20 people who are bilingual in our office in order to provide the services that we provide, but there aren't -- there aren't any slots, there aren't 20 because there aren't any slots that are designated as this is a bilingual -- bilingual slot, you have to be bilingual to occupy slot 163.
now, the way we've done that in the past is when we've had someone who reported that they were bilingual and we checked them, no formal test, but had people in our office that we knew spoke spanish speak spanish with them and verified in fact they really do speak spanish, they didn't just put that on their resume, and they are being hired into a slot like a victim witness coordinator where we need victim witness coordinators who speak spanish, we have at their initial employment compensated them using the old matrix.
we've used it as a guide and part of that allows to you add a point if they are blink anabolin is needed in that job.
this goes back to something we talked about a few weeks ago when we were talking about the interim report to the compensation committee.
the problem with compensating them that way is when you then raise the ranges but you do not raise the salaries accordingly of the people who are in those ranges, then that initial compensation for them being able to speak spanish gets lost when the range goes up but their salary doesn't go up.
we gave them some to start with, enough we've raised the range, now everybody is getting paid what they are even if they don't speak spanish and they lose that compensation that we initially tried to give them because they spoke spanish and we needed them to speak spanish.
so I hope that helps on the clarification.
when I heard that we didn't make the cut because we didn't have 20 people who need to do speak spanish, I thought, mmm, we don't have 20 slots that require spanish speakers but we need way more than 20 people in our office who spoke spanish.
we could not function with less than 20 people who were bilingual.
yes, sir.
>> jim, under other conditions, other than english and spanish that's being spoken, we know victims services is needed when there are victims of -- when a person becomes a victim and any other attributes that go along with that as far as what represents the problem.
other than english and spanish, what's being done with other languages?
what's being done to communicate with we are languages other than spanishand english?
>> one of two things happens in our office.
first, we have to figure out what language it is that they are speaking that we don't know.
then we have to find an interpreter outside the office, and there are interpreters on contract with the county and sometimes we just find volunteer interpreters.
rarely we may have somebody, for instance, we have a vietnamese speaker in our office now.
we haven't had any occasion to call on him, but there have been times when we've had vietnamese speakers from the public and if he had been there we would have called on him.
but the typical thing is we have to make them wait, to require them to wait until we can find somebody who can translate out of their language.
but by a long shot the vast majority of people who come to our office who do not speak spanish are people who speak -- I mean who do not speak english are people who speak spanish.
occasionally we get the other languages, but it's a minor thing compared to the number who come who speak spanish but don't speak english.
>> this appears to me to be a much larger policy issue that goes back to the idea of a continuing compensation review for individuals based on their skill set.
and if spanish is part of their skill set, to have that duly compensated on an ongoing basis, it really seems to be a compensation structure issue more so than an add on pay that as you say and as the backup says under our current pay structure usually gets diluted over time.
so this really sounds like something we need to look at more closely through h.r.
and through the compensation committee and come back with recommendations on how to address it in a comprehensive compensation system.
>> without going from half a million dollars to 2 million, can we do that?
>> I just want the court to understand the unique situation in our office, and I suspect without having checked that you'll find a lot of other offices.
>> it's not that unique.
i see sherry sitting over here and I imagine she is about to say something very similar in regard to spots that aren't specifically designated as spanish speakers, but I can't imagine how it would certainly be optimal to have social workers be bilingual.
>> let's give ms.
fleming the final word on this today.
>> thank you, and I'll do my best to be brief.
i want to go over a lot of things that mr.
collins said.
i appreciate that.
i just wanted to make a few points.
first is that this is an issue of access.
and so it may be helpful to think of it that way.
i think the other thing is that certainly our primary focus is county services, but I would remind you that your facilities across the county provide information on county services but it's so much broader than that.
there's so many people who find their way into the palm square building who are not looking for county services but they are looking for something.
and because that is a public building they come in and most often they are not english speakers, they may be spanish speakers, vietnamese or whatever.
and so -- so it's a broader issue of access and what we believe our responsibility is to the community in terms of being able to not only provide access to our services but access to information and direction to folks in the community.
i think that it is a discussion that departments have to have and then ultimately have with the comp committee and the court about how our programs reflect the community that we serve.
and how we identify that community.
so I think all of those concerns are important.
and then finally, in terms of other languages, I heard Commissioner Davis ask that question a couple times, h.h.s.
has had a tremendous relationship with language lines services --
>> what?
>> it's language lines and I don't want to say the name of the vendor because it might be different but at one point it was affiliated with one of the major communication vendors and it may not be that person anymore, but what language line does is provides access to over 150 different languages and dialects.
because within languages we have a variety of dialects.
and so it has helped us to communicate not only periodically with spanish speaker but also with persons who speak asian languages, portuguese is the language that is up and coming in our community, and then there are various african dialects that I'm told that we have had to access.
and so our caseworkers as we've had funds available and opportunity have been equipped with speaker phones in their office, they call into that service and the interpreter can then hear the conversation that is going on between the caseworker and the client and provide the interpretation that's needed for that person to receive a service or information.
>> do you know how much that costs?
for that service?
>> you can imagine at one point, Commissioner, it was very reasonable and inexpensive.
the price is going up.
i have -- I believe we made a transfer into those line items just recently.
i don't have the price but I can let you know.
>> thank you.
>> but it is a service that I am told by staff that is invaluable in regard to the work we do in emergency services and whatnot.
so thank you.
>> thank you very much.
>> move that we follow staff's two recommendation, the first of which is to authorize the intradepartment total transfer of $455 to pay for tests already administered.
and secondly that we withhold action on the bilingual supplemental pay policy until an appropriate time in the future when staff will bring this item back.
and between now and then staff hopfully will conduct further appropriate research, review and other appropriate action.
is that broad snuff?
>> yes.
>> those of us with specific questions will get them to you by e-mail.
discussion?
>> yeah, I think they've heard mine.
>> and it is about access and it is about communicating with people where they can get the services that they need.
the other thing that happens is that maybe they stop going to the judge's office and they come over to my office because we get a lot of calls about --
>> maybe we send them over there.
>> perhaps.
>> [laughter] perhaps.
and a lot of times what happens is they also want an interpretation of what kind of services are they going to get from so and so.
and so we -- we also do a lot of interpretation.
we also kind of speak for the county staff and the services that we provide.
you'll be fine.
go over and see so and so.
and so it's all part of access.
and providing the services that we are here to provide.
>> and those earlier requests that I made as far as specific questions on the other counties not funding such services, you have a list in your backup.
i'm trying to figure out how they actually provide the service and don't fund it in according what I'm saying.
and of course the cities that do, is there a nexus and I reported those earlier and I don't want to repeat that.
of course, sherri fleming, after she spoke, wants to know exactly what that service costs, this $150 language line that you can dial into.
i'm just looking for these moving parts and y'all can get back to me on those specifics.
>> thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> number 21 --
>> did we vote?
>> all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
>> thank you.
>> I felt the need to move on.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, July 7, 2009 1:31 PM