Travis County Commissioners Court
Tuesday, March 1, 2011,
Item 23
>> 23 is to consider and take appropriate action on personnel adjustments in the county clerk's office to manage the research and preparation of requirements for a new voting system and to assist in the prep and the transition to a new elections division director.
>> yes.
thank you, judge.
good morning.
>> good morning.
>> Commissioners, judge, dana devobroir, Travis County clerk.
I'm here to ask for approval of a plan to make a transition.
we are like many other departments in county government dealing with a transition that has to do with retirement.
wore starting in that process where we're going to be losing some of our most skilled, most trained, most knowledgeable people here in the near future.
so we're looking for a transition plan to get us through that.
it just so happens that this first couple of retirements that we're going to be experiencing are happening right as we're getting ready to go forward with planning for the preparation for Travis County to have a new voting system, one that the study group presented most recently to the Commissioners court for the kind of things that we believe our community wants in the future for its voting system.
so with that in mind, what we have planned and are asking your approval for today is I'm requesting to temporary salary increases and a temporary creation of a special project temporary employee position within the county clerk's division that are going to operate within the elections division.
and the way this works is, we have one person we would like to take over the project of writing the specifications, the design elements, that go into the paper that says, this is what Travis County voters want in a new voting system.
we talked about it earlier.
we have now come to the point where we are ready to start doing that writing.
we've gather our research materials.
we're ready to get started on that project.
the other two employees in that division are filling in behind some of the work that this trained and knowledgeable person would be leaving behind as she goes to work on this new project.
so really what we're talking about is one person and two dominoes that would follow.
the two -- this is an election management coordinator that would fill this job and then the other two persons behind it are also currently employed in the division, currently knowledgeable employees.
and I would ask for salary adjustments so that they could fill in behind the gaps that would be left behind as other people -- as one other person leaves that position, other people would begin to fill in for the tasks that are left undone.
you begin to see the domino effect.
we do not believe we have to ask commission ers court for funding for this, at least at this time.
we believe we can make up for it with resources drawn from within the division and from another division, the recording division in the county clerk's office, and from our contracts with the other entities when we go forward with conducting their elections.
because these are the people who also would be working for the other entities when we do elections.
the plan before you calls for if this change would be voted on today, the amount of money we're talking about is critical to make sure we can carry with a plan with people who already have some basis of knowledge going forward for what the division and what the county is going to need for the future.
the cost in fy 11 would be about $28,900.
and the cost for fy 12 would be approximately $33,000.
once again, the cost for the entire project at $62,000 we think we can absorb by relying on incoming future revenue and other resources within the elections division and other departments within the county clerk's office.
we can -- we believe that this will go -- this transition plan will be in effect for approximately a year, a little bit more than that.
the retirement that we're looking at will happen in may 2012.
so we're trying to work to get prepared for that.
we do want the document that will go out for the new voting system to be prepared as soon as possible.
and you will be getting periodic updates on how that project is going as well.
so we're preparing for two things at once.
and they do fit very nicely together.
I am available for questions.
>> I have a couple.
how are you doing?
>> I'm doing great.
thank you very much.
>> and the question is that I guess with this particular strategy that you have presented to the court this morning, it appears that the termination date -- well, the date we're looking at, may of 2012, will be in line or it would be elections that have not happened but will be happening between here and the particular termination of this other person as far as may of 2012.
and if that is the case, do you feel that the training or the skill sets that are necessary for the ongoing type of experience to be realized will be where it should be at that time for the other employees as they go along through the process?
>> for the individuals who are going to be working on the project for deal signing a new voting system to ask for on the marketplace, they will have the time and the resources they already have the knowledge to do this.
we've spent a couple of years building the research behind them.
so yes, they are in a good position.
and we'll have people following up behind them to be able to take over their duties so none of the training and our ability to take care of our partners should suffer from removing that person to do that job.
we should be in very good shape there.
once we have the division director lead, that's who is retiring, gale fisher, the division manager -- I know.
we all feel the same way.
we love gail.
once gail leaves there will be -- we have a strong second in the position who spent the last year and certainly will spend the next year making sure thatner a good position to know everything that's going on from the two manager and the manager of the division.
but we will be looking for yet another person who's strong, who can take over in that division manager position.
we haven't gotten to the point yet where we are replacing the division manager.
>> right.
>> so we still have to get to that place as a part of our transition.
but having a strong team behind that person is what we're trying to make sure that we get ahold of right now and have in place.
so there's still more work to come.
>> right.
so this is just the session plan.
>> the first part.
>> the first part of it, anyway.
okay, thank you.
>> mr. Rigs bi, anything in related to this item?
>> mr. Davis' question, that's exactly the point it's the experience.
while we're talking about here in elections is counting votes.
and I'm not talking about boondoggle machines we have to buy or systems we have to convince people we have to buy.
counting votes.
it's something real crucial to everything that we all do and why we're here and what you do.
and this is a great opportunity for us to save money for the county, for the elections and recording divisions, we can help them save money and save the county money across the board by -- I know personally the two ladies who come here and they put their own time and effort into getting us into a more legitimate way of counting ballots and all that.
and you know them, they come here all the time.
and I know other volunteers.
I'd volunteer to help.
I don't need to be paid to help get this kind of thing in order.
and again, we can save money on these boondoggle machines which is what we just went through if you all remember, these scam machines that are programmable from afar.
and we don't get the actual message in again.
and I personally experienced it myself when I ran for office my vote was completely miscounted.
and I didn't know enough to -- how to contest it at the time.
but anyway, so just a suggestion.
just like you said, we need to talk about the experience.
and what experience is really necessary to count a vote?
I mean, this is happening all over the world, all over the country.
there are other state and localities that are insisting on going back to paper ballots.
so if we did a little bit of research on that end, we'd be I think a lot better off.
and again, saving money.
that's what we're all about.
>> thank you, mr. Bigs wii.
-- p.b.o.
any input?
>> thank you for their help.
you have got the sheet in front of you.
you.
at osborne -- first I thank dana for coming to our office and meeting with us prior to the proposal.
want to appreciate the opportunity to approve the plan.
this is a solid plan to accomplish two different goals essentially there's a succession planning element to this and there's also the goal of making sure that somebody is in place to do all the necessary upfront work to obtain the new voting system and so they're combining two different goals here.
there's nothing that they're asking from a policy perspective that is outside the temporary assignment policy.
the salary adjustments would not take any of the incumbents beyond the 10%, beyond mid point that is typically kind of a warning spot for us.
just to say that h.r.m.d.
supports the plan and thinks it's a pretty good template for future succession planning.
>> thanks.
>> randy -- all the funding for this was identified internally a long time ago.
we've been on board with it for awhile.
so it's a pleasure as always.
>> court members, any questions or comments?
>> yes.
I don't have a problem with special projects.
those aren't unusual.
but we have elections on a regular basis and we have people retire on a regular basis.
so I'm just questioning if you have a succession plan in place, long term, not just this little short term patch.
because it seems to me that a good succession plan anticipates the cost within the annual budget.
>> well, Travis County doesn't -- and I say this without too much criticism.
but Travis County doesn't make it easy to replace one of your very top most skilled people.
there's not a way to bring somebody in and hire them at the same time that you still have the person on board.
we don't have a double hiring way to do that.
so that's always been our challenge here.
and while we have people come and go all the time and we survive that way, there are sensitive positions, and certainly the head of elections I find a sensitive position simply because there is so much specialized knowledge.
so I'm paying special attention to this.
the calendar year, the election year and the budget year unfortunately pay no attention to each other.
so depending on which year you're really talking about, that we should be planning for, we've often had to deal with the fact that election year and the budget year don't really measure very well.
so while it looks like we're dealing with two budget years, really in our world it's an election year.
so we arer trying to come up with a succession plan that is within the rational part of an election year.
it does happen to overlap budget years.
that's just the world that we live in.
>> and Commissioner, we have had instances where I just had one recently with one of the constables offices where what we do is we create a temporary position for the incumbent, promote the person into the the person that's going to take over the succession spot into that slot where we have that temporary slot back filled by the person who's going to retire to train them, usually the time frames have been anywhere from a month to three month so far in my experience.
but we haven't had those mechanisms. And most departments have been able to absorb those because they don't need an entire year.
they only usually need a small space while they're getting up-to-date on that.
so I don't see that as a huge hurdle with the county clerk's office, at least in my experience with them.
>> and we're not quite ready yet to cut gail loose just yet.
we need her right up until it's time to then start looking for the replacement for the head of the division.
this is to get ready for, then, that next step which is gail retires and we search for a new head of the division.
>> I'm going to support this.
and I'm not picking on you individually.
but I am continuing to pound on the fact that you need better succession planning across the board in the county so that we don't have agenda items and salary adjustment and things like that in the process because of well-thought-out succession planning.
it promotes from within and recognizes diversity and keeps a steady course.
>> I would like to say that h.r.b.
is working on its succession plan.
I understand the intent is to work on it specifically most department that is report directly to the court first and then to expand it out and make it available to the elected and appointed officials.
>> succession planning without additional money?
or with additional money?
any questions or comment?
move approval?
>> second.
>> discussion on the the motion?
all in favor?
that passes by unanimous vote.
thank you very much.
>> thank you for your help.
>> we have come to the legislative item.
there eckstein?
I'm sure he's headed this way, mr. Eckstein.
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Last Modified:
Tuesday, February, 2011 2:19 PM
