Travis County Commissioners Court
March 6, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 19
Now let's call back to order the voting session of the Travis County Commissioners court.
we have posted 19, consider and take appropriate action on the report from the compensation committee including a, revisions to report since the last court presentation; b, the job analysis project conducted by hrmd during fiscal year 2011 through 2012.
hrmd being human resources development management department.
thank you, ms. Blankenship.
I was just trying to make sure you were still on your toes after your long vacation.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> that was long.
came back with a new name.
>>
>> [inaudible].
>> all right.
19 b, implementation from market adjustments and other compensation recommendations.
what's your new name so we can get that on the mic.
>> diane peroit.
p-e-r-o-i-t.
but I still answer to davenport, sir.
>> I just got used to blankenship.
>> good afternoon, chevy fleming, county executive for health and human services and vice chair of the compensation committee.
I have joined the hrmd department.
I am here on I believe it's item a of this agenda item regarding any changes to the compensation committee's report since our previous reports to the court.
when we reported to you last, the court asked the compensation to go back and look at its recommendations regarding reclassifications of market adjustments being restricted to 5% per pay grade.
but in no event higher than the mid point.
and as we worked with hrmd and p.b.o.
with the current results of the market salary, we noticed some unintended consequences of this recommendation which is what prompted the court to send the compensation committee back to look at this.
and so the compensation committee based on that direction met four additional times to look at that recommendation, but also to look at your request regarding our recommendation for performance management systems as well.
we had a recommendation for you to deemphasize across the board pay increases in favor of performance-based pay.
and so we were asked to look at places where performance-based pay was working successfully -- or excuse me, performance management systems were working successfully and to potentially have some recommendations for you.
so since those four meetings, the compensation committee has amended its recommendation to include that in the event of a reclassification on market adjustment, the amount of the pay increase received by any incumbent in the job title will be calculated as 3.5 times the number of pay grades plus the number of pay grades moved times the mid point of the proposed grade.
and I believe that the assumptions that the hrmd staff have used in costing the current market study conform to that recommendation.
>> let me say 3%.
>> I'm sorry, did I not say that?
>> a lot more money.
>> 3.5%.
>> are you going through table a?
>> no, item a was the changes in the compensation report.
and what I'm reading from is our chair, jim collins', memo is what I'm reading from.
>> okay.
>> okay?
item 2 of our charge to go back and reconsider had to do with successfully implemented performance review systems. And we are prepared to make that report to the court at any time that you deem appropriate.
so that would be our second recommendation, that we do have information identifying several major employers which believe that they have successfully implemented performance review systems. Then our third -- the result of our meeting was the compensation committee has been unable to develop a detailed performance evaluation system to recommend to Commissioners court.
we believe that this task will take longer than the four meetings that we've had to complete.
so if it were the court's pleasure to charge us with completing that work, we would need time to go back and develop a performance management system.
so therefore the compensation committee recommends that the Travis County Commissioners court, number 1, adopt the examption policy recommended by the compensation committee in full with the provision outlined in result number 1 of this memo.
2, charge the compensation committee with recommend to go the court a detailed performance evaluation system.
and then 3, to not award any pay for performance as part of the compensation policy until the Commissioners court has adopted a detailed performance evaluation system.
>> so how much time will the committee need if the court were to charge the committee to complete the performance evaluation system work?
>> judge, the chair
>> [inaudible] when we were meeting --
>> [inaudible] that time we met every week.
but when we were meeting before, because of the people on the committee and their schedules, we typically had one meeting per month.
we occasionally moved up that and had a couple meetings per month.
in between subcommittees would immediate.
based on that schedule, I would anticipate that the committee will require six months to nine months to develop a fully set pay for performance plan like the court requested.
and I'm basing that on what we accomplished in the four meetings that we had and trying to look forward, that we're probably looking at six to nine months on that meeting schedule.
>> so I guess -- I'm sorry.
go ahead.
>> my final point was about to be so we have not found a best practices model from which we can copy.
some would say cheat.
but that we can copy?
>> there are a number of models and we looked at several of those models.
greg powell was the one actually who did the research on existing pay for performance plans that we thought were being implemented successfully at major employers in this area, and he can report on that.
but even given that we have those models that we can follow, the plan that we have is such that if I told you I thought we could do it in less than six meetings, I really think that would be -- we probably could not meet that schedule.
we can move that up and meet every three weeks or every two weeks, but the people on that committee really have a lot of other activities that they are involved in.
so pressing it to more than one meeting a month would be difficult.
but as I say, there's subcommittees of the committee that meet regularly in between the committee meeting.
but that would be my estimate is six -- six to nine meetings, which equates to six to nine months.
that would be in time for the court to implement pay for performance in the next budget year, but it would not be in time for you to implement pay for performance in this budget year.
>> okay.
any questions, Commissioner Davis?
>> yeah, that was my point.
I was wondering if that was set aside because a lot of these things we're looking at, some of them are looking at bringing the situation back up through April 1.
I just wanted to make sure there wasn't any overlapping as far as what you can bring back to the court in a timely manner to make sure that if it was not addressed in this fiscal year it could be addressed the next fiscal year and I heard you say that is the point.
because really when we're looking at a lot of this, some of the stuff may go back into the April 1 setting, and so I just want to make sure we got everything in front of us.
>> absolutely, sir.
and -- I'm sorry.
>> go ahead and finish what you are saying.
>> to be clear, a point of clarification, the -- the compensation policies recommended by the committee consist of two major components.
the first is keeping salaries at pace with the market.
and you are going to be looking at the market study that's been done.
the recommendation is to do a major market study every four years and to do spot studies in the intervening years to make sure that we keep the salaries up to the point where we're not facing a major increase the next time we do a major market study.
and there is nothing about our recommendation on pay for performance which would prevent the Commissioners court from fully implementing that and doing those market studies and planning those market studies annually as they were done.
the part we're palming about is the pay for performance part which is the second component.
and so we -- I honestly do not believe that the committee will be able to bring you a fully formed recommendation in time for this budget year, but I'm confident the committee can do it in time for the budget process next year.
>> I don't have any problem with that, especially looking at the possibility of implementation April 1 this year, hopefully bringing this up 1% or either 2% on the performance money that may be set aside for
>> [indiscernible].
I just wanted to make sure it's clear and I get everything in front of me so I can clear exactly where we're going.
thank you.
thank you, judge.
>> okay.
>> I'm going to hand this over to todd to start walking us through the market salary survey that was conducted over the last year.
jerry is busting up the place.
>> this is the March 6th memo from mr. Osborne we're about to go through?
>> yes.
>> okay.
>> good afternoon, judge, good afternoon, Commissioners.
good afternoon, everybody else.
my name is todd osborne.
I'm the compensation manager here in Travis County.
to my right travis gatlin, senior budget and list for p.b.o.
and, of course, you know mr. Leroy nellis who is the budget director for p.b.o.
we're here to talk about the job analysis project, what's commonly called in county the market salary survey and that's what people like to call it and we'll refer to it as that as well.
we have prepared a presentation, but I don't know exactly -- okay, it is projecting.
okay.
we have a power point presentation today.
and I really want to start with, you know, why are we here, what's the purpose of this, what was the origin of this.
and the fact of the matter is back in late 2010 on December 7th, Commissioners court direct our department, human resources management, to conduct a market salary analysis of all regular jobs on the classified pay scale in Travis County.
now, that represents a slight change from things that we've done in the past.
in the last nine to ten years or so, we have typically looked at a third of our jobs in any given year so that we look at all of our jobs over a three-year period.
the compensation committee recommended that it would be a better approach to look at all of our jobs in a single year because that way when it came time for implementation, all of our implementation would be done at the same time and there wouldn't be different budget circumstances that occur over the three-year period.
essentially it's a more equitable way of implementing the results.
the purpose of the project at the time it was begun was to give the Commissioners court a comprehensive view of the county's overall competitive market position, and when we brought this item to you, there was no promise of implementation made by the Commissioners.
we told you we would give you this information and whatever you did with it would be up to you and we're going to live up to that promise today.
but we do have some cost figures later on that we can give you in case you did decide to implement the project.
we had a number of jobs that were included in the project and a number that weren't.
all of our regular positions for jobs on the classified pay scale were included in the project.
also we have roughly seven or eight different jobs that are not on our classified pay scale.
they are typically very highly paid professional jobs and they are what we call nonclassified position, but we did look at them and added them into the project as well.
we also included special project employees.
now, basically special project employees are treated as regular full-time employees typically, but they don't have protection of r.i.f.
the grand total of about 3600 slots, exact total of 3,604 slots, were included in the project for examination.
this translates to a f.t.e.
counseled 35,551, 37.
they occupy more than one with slot.
we had a total of 464 jobs or titles that were examined during the project.
this was a very large project acknowledge it was very time consuming and very comprehensive.
having said that, there were some jobs we did not include.
and we did not include in this project those employees around the pop scale.
to our peace officers on the peace officer pay scale are not included in the study.
employees in the auditor's office taken purchasing office were not included in the project as well.
as you may know, those two offices have opted out of the classification and compensation system.
they more or less run their own system.
and they were invited to participate and they declined at the time.
we did not include elected officials in this project such as yourself.
we would like to get some direction at some point as to how would like to handle elected official pay in the upcoming year, but we'll probably come back to you in a little while on that.
we have three employees that are paid by the city of Austin that we didn't include.
we have associate junkes, judge, magistrates and referees who work in the court.
typically their pay is connected to the salaries of elected judges and we did not include them in the study.
we did not include temporary employees in the project.
we'll talk more about temporaries a little later.
and finally, the county executive for information services, we would have liked to included this job in the analysis, but we do not have at this point an approved job description and we honestly did not think that we could do a decent comparison of the marketplace without knowing exactly what this position would encompass.
and so we have left this one job out of the analysis.
>> I have a question.
going back to list of what wasn't included, some -- some make sense, but I'm wondering is there a rationale for getting at least paqs on all those employees even if we're not going to include them in our compensation system?
>> which employees are you thinking of?
>> I'm thinking specifically of -- I mean pops doesn't really make sense because pops pay scale by its very essence we know what the pax is on each one of those slots.
but as far as auditor, purchasing, elected officials, even city of Austin, those paid before by city of Austin, associate judges and magistrates, temporary employees, wouldn't he want to have at least paqs on all of those just from a h.r.
perspective to know what the division of labor was in departments and how we were utilizing our human resources?
>> I would think if not paqs, at least job descriptions.
we would like to have the job descriptions and maybe a paq to compare with that.
some of those offices may have those internally if if auditing agent or purchasing agent can speak for themselves, but they may have their own internal job description.
sometimes they may contract out for somebody to look at their market analysis.
I'm not sure if that's the case, but yeah, at least job description so we know what they are supposed to be doing and then the paq is used to verify.
does the job description encompass the level and scope of the job.
>> I'm just thinking as stewards of the taxpayer dollar and the budgeting authority, whether or not we're specifically budgeting someone else's salary structure, it would be nice to know what the -- the human resources are being utilized for.
>> I think ideally we would like to have paq for every position in Travis County.
I'm not quite sure the value for an elected official because the elected official defines the job however they see fit and retain their job depending on how well they satisfy their constituents.
>> although it might be a interesting exercise for those of us who are elected to also have to put pen to paper about what we do.
>> as far as the auditors and the performing office, certainly we would like to have paqs but we can't compel them to complete them.
and they elected not to take part in this particular project and they have that prerogative.
not to say we wouldn't like to have them because we would, but it requires cooperation both ways.
and, you know, the temporary employees, we have a pretty good idea of what those folks are doing today.
based upon the pa qs submitted by the regular employees who have the same titles.
I'm not sure there's a value added of getting them from the temps.
>> I'm assuming you have received a letter from judges livingston and kocurek requesting that magistrates and associate judges be analyze understand.
>> yes, we did receive that and we're certainly not against looking at that.
I think specifically what they are looking at is the matching relationship with the elected judges, and I think right now it's around 75% and the question is that still somewhat commonplace in the market.
the honest answer is I don't know but we don't have a problem taking a look at it.
>> did we not examine it for the same reason we didn't examine purchase being and auditing, that we rely on the judges who are the supervisors of those -- those classifications to request et?
request it?
>> the shortest answer would be yes.
that's a job where it has an historic match to a elect office.
since we didn't look at the elected office, we didn't look at the matched position to the elected office.
if they want us to take a look at it, we'll be happy to do it.
>> thanks.
>> the methodology is pretty much what you are familiar with.
classification looks at is somebody doing the work that is in their defined job description.
and we get that information off of our paq document.
we had 35, 3600 of them completed and we read them all.
and basically what that means is we go in and we compare to see if the information that's on the paq is consistent with what's in the job description.
if it's not, eel take a second look at it and those jobs may be recommended for reclassification through the project.
on the compensation side, it's primarily determined by what level of pay is commonplace in the market.
so we take a look at our jobs, compare them to the range mid point, the average range mid point of the market as has been defined historically and then see if we need to make any adjustments to the pay grade.
so we begin with that as a starting point for our recommendations.
then we do an internal equity alignment check to see if the positions are matching up based on historical comparisons and whether or not the jobs are still maintained properly within a series, and then we come up a final recommendation for each job and where they should fit within our pay scale t final recommendation comes down to a slot level where we recommendation the pay grade and designation for each slot.
since it's a question we often yet, the piers we use for the marketplace have been long established.
there is nothing on the list of peers that you haven't seen before with one exception.
we have a new third party survey, it's e.r.i., economic research institute, which is actually a very helpful instrument for us in this particular project.
but the counties that we look at are the same we've always looked at, bexar county, dallas, harrison, Williamson.
the cities are the major cities within those jurisdictions, and then we have some other local public sector organizations such as the state of Texas, lcra, u.t.
if any of you have done any survey work you know it's very difficult to get private sector firms to give out very specific compensation information because they view it as a competitive disadvantage if that gets out in the marketplace.
however, they are sometimes willing to give that information to consulting firms in return for the results that they get back.
and so what he do is we incorporate the data from the consulting firms, we buy that data every year, and we use that to proxy the private sector data that we couldn't get if we tried to survey, you know, 200 firms individually.
and by looking at, you know, collection of seven or eight differentiate third party source we feel like we can do a pretty good approximate makes and there are a lot of jobs in government that have no public sector match otherwise they would be done in the private sector already.
that gets us to our results, and I think this is probably the most important table that we're going to show you today.
travis might say it's the costing table, but in my opinion this really captures where Travis County is at from a competitive standpoint.
if you look at it, we have seven jobs that we think right now are paid above the marketplace and we're recommending they be moved down one pay grade.
that's not a lot out of 464, but we have an additional 184 jobs that are roughly 40% of our positions that we believe right now are sitting at market.
in other words, Travis County is paying competitively for these positions.
the largest number of our jobs is those that we're recommending go up one pay grade, or in other words, we believe that Travis County is presently about one bay pay grade behind the market place for these jobs.
a total of 219 that are in that category, I think it's 445% or so.
we have another 53 jobs we think are off by two pay grades.
so in other words, if a job is sitting in a pay grade 18, that means that we've surveyed the market and we believe that the market value of that job is a pay grade 20.
finally we had one job that we think is off three pay grades.
one job, one slot.
very small amount.
so when you look at it in the aggregate, Travis County is somewhere between zero to one pay grade off the market in summary, and I think when we started the project we expected it to be a little bit higher.
but this is the result that we came up when we did the market analysis.
so this is where we're at as of today.
>> can you -- and this is perhaps just my lack of understanding of the terminology.
the recommendation is for 87 slots to be recommended for reclassification.
but there are actually 2699 slots that are off market.
right?
>> yes.
there's a subtle distinction here.
reclassification is when we have discovered that there's an individual slot where people doing the work are doing a work that really should be done by a different title.
so we're taking them and they are give ann different title out of the pros process.
>> it's not an adjustment of the pay grade, it's an actual --
>> it's a different title.
>> change of title.
>> when we look at the paq, it doesn't match the job description and matches another job description better.
you are really an office manager when we start looking at everything you are doing.
that's not the market, tonight's you are in the wrong job.
>> plainly different analogy.
broken out by job family, this this table should look somewhat familiar because I think we presented it back in the fall.
the job families that had the most movement typically are the ones surveyed last.
o.
excuse me, the longest to go.
and they include the skilled trades family, general road maintenance, add minimum admin d county executive.
I want to stop and mention we did bring to court in February the proposed classification levels for our county executives.
and at that time Commissioners court approved the recommendations for h.h.s., criminal justice, emergency management, p.b.o.
and t.n.r.
at that time we did not give you a recommendation for administrative operations.
we did do some analysis based on the assumption that there would be an a mmin county substitute I have and it would survey -- excuse me, it would oversee facilities and records.
and we came out to roughly a pay grade 33 recommendation.
it's currently in a 32.
we understand the job is currently vacant and has been vacant for a while.
but I just wanted to let you know we did take a look at that particular job and the costing of that even though it is vacant is including in the costing of the project.
>> and can I also add the county executives we moved up last year, we did change their grades but they not get an associated market increase with that and that's also in the costing figures that you see.
so t.n.r., p.b.o., et cetera, that would be included in the costing figures also.
>> correct.
the pay grades them have and approved already, but there was no pay increase associated with the cake at the time.
our recommendation is that those employees be treated the same as every other employee and that the same formula that gets used for even else would be used for them as well.
that has been included in the costing figures that we'll be discussing very shortly.
>> todd, would you give me those categories Austin.
skilled trades.
>> skilled trades.
general road maintenance.
admin support.
county executives.
I'm turning the page.
public safety.
and by public safety I'm not talking about pops here.
I'm talking about the fire marshal.
>> e.m.s.
and fire marshal.
>> those types of jobs.
and also we have a very small number of purchasing job outside of the purchasing office.
I think it's like three or four slots.
but those jobs actually did move some.
so those are the ones that moved up one to two pay grades sue is that information in our backup?
>> in this memo.
>> it's not directly in the backup.
>> it's broken down further.
>> it's actually a little bit less aggregated --
>> you will share a hard copy of that with us?
>> sure.
>> excuse me, sir?
>> I just said it would be good to have.
the rest of the job families either typically went zero pay grades or one or anywhere between zero and one.
I did want to talk about reclassifications.
>> can I ask one question before you go there.
when I see slot, I should think budgeted position?
>> yes, sir.
>> okay.
>> so we've been talking about what has the market shown for our jobs and how are we competitively.
I want to drop back now and talk about the issue of reclassification and that's the classification issue where we examine what people are doing against their job descriptions.
so in other words, we're reading over 35, 3600 paq degrees and identifying jobs we have questions or not whether or not they are working within their job classification.
as a result of the project, we are recommending a toe totalof 85 slots get reclassified.
receive downward and 20 would result in no change and 60 would result in a higher pay grade.
we did recommend that five jobs go from a nonexempt status to an exempt status and these are the parks supervisors 1 and 2, food services manager, the home repair supervisor and the equipment mechanical supervisor and all of these we believe would be exempt under the managerial exemption under fsla and that's the primary nature of the work the supervisor of managerial.
we did not recommend any jobs move from exempt to nonexempt.
there's a number of jobs, there's nine new jobs that we're proposing in this project and the reason for the new jobs is that there has been changes in the work being done and we believe that a new job description, a new job itself is needed because of the fact that the work being done is not matching the work in the job description and there is not another job description within Travis County that we think it matches.
so therefore we're going to need to have a new title and a new job description.
I've already taken a look at these and have determined what pay grade they should be in.
on the other hand, there is about nine jobs that we're recollecting for retirement.
most of these are in i.t.
and they are mostly in computer operating and telecom tech and I want to say in case someone is watch, just because we're recommending the title be retired, we're not recommending the employee be retired.
this simply means the job has changed over time.
in the example of a telecom tech, these are people who used to work on phone lines.
all that work now is done through networks and wireless.
these people have moved on.
they have become network engineers.
and so we have a total of nine positions -- excuse me, nine titles we're recommending for retirement.
>> how many positions would that be?
about.
>> 30.
approximately.
>> okay.
>> now, one question that comes up a lot is we -- if we have historically had our green circles or those slots that are below the posted minimums of a pay grade, and those slots that are red lined, which are those slots that are either at or above the range maximum.
when we began the project, there were 53 shots, all of which were in cscd, that were green circle, we were paying the below the range minimum.
the reason is when we moved the scale two years ago, cscd at that time couldn't match what was going on with the county and the range has moved.
the salaries didn't kneesly keep pace.
so consequently if this project gets implemented and cscd implements it as we're recommending if they have the funding, the number of green circle slots would go from 53 to.
>> reporter:.
on the other hand, when the project started well, had 191 slots that were either at or above the range of maximum or what we call red line.
after this project is over if it were implemented as proposed, that number would fall to 34.
and I would have to say that of that 34, most of those are in those classifications where the sort approved a $2 an hour job increase several years ago for some positions generally in general road and maintenance.
and what that resulted is for those people fairly highly paid within their range, they tended to go far outside of their range and so consequently even though we're recommending some of those jobs get moved in the pay scale, some of them, a relatively small number, are still either at or above the proposed maximum of the pay grade.
>> so they are at or above market based on your --
>> yes.
>> -- your survey.
okay.
but they are very -- these are some lower paying jobs, though.
so above market is relative.
>> yes.
>> if $2 can knock you out of the market, then --
>> that's correct.
>> 34 of them are at or above market at our range right now because they would get no increase associated with this because they are already at or above market now.
>> no, no, that's not exactly --
>> 34 of them will be left outside of-will still be red circled.
currently right now they are at or above market.
>> technically they could get an increase and be at range maximum.
they are not outside of the range they are at the maximum of the range and there are a number of those, but there are some that are actually still going outside of our range.
>> oh, I see.
if their pay grade moved and they got the 3.5% commensurate with the movement in their pay grade, they may be red lined now and still later but they would still get some kind of increase?
is that what you are staying?
no, sorry.
>> when we move those grades into a grade some of them listen within the grade and actually get some more money.
there's 34 that will still be red lined.
they are already above where they are at right now and they are still going to be on the high end.
>> the bottom line the number of red lines by about 160 slots which is probably a good thing.
we have relieved some of the pressure that the $2 an hour increase put on the pay ranges at that time because what happened was we approved the $2 an hour increase, but we did not approve that those jobs -- excuse me, the people in those jobs go to different pay grades so that puts people farther out to tend of their pay scales.
now we're kind of doing the second part in the sense those jobs are now -- I'll any you a example, moving from a 5 to a 7 so there's more room for them within the new range and within pay grade 7 than there was in pay grade 5.
so that's where the majority of these red line situations are being relieved from.
I know everybody likes to talk about the cost and moving into the costing part, and I think for that --
>> do you want to go over the
>> [inaudible].
>> and then the methodology is very much like sherri fleming described earlier.
when we did our costing the new base pay is equal to your existing base play plus the number of grades you moved times three and a half percent times the mid point of your proposed pay grade.
so if you moved up one pay grade, one times three and a half is three and a half.
we take three and a half percent of the mid point of the proposed pay grade.
that's your increase.
if you moved up two, two times three and a half is seven.
seven times the mid point of your proposed pay grade, that's your increase.
the beneficial thing of this costing methodology is that the separation that exists between employees within the same pay grade is -- let's say travis and I are -- let's say I make 1 $1,000 morethan travis and we're same pay grade.
at the end of the process, that thousand dollar difference is still going to be intact.
what this does it maintains the spacing that exists.
now, we did have to do something with those who once they got the increase still would not be at the minimum of a new pay grade.
there were some of those and so we proposed adding that amount to get them to the minimum of the new pay grade.
that was step 2.
and then if the -- if the resulting salary would result in the employee being above the maximum of the proposed pay grade, the increase was limited to the maximum of the new pay grade.
so bottom line, no employee is recommended for a salary decrease.
there should not be any employees in Travis County that as a result of this project will make a dime less than they made before the project was implemented.
some will go up, some will go down, some will stay the same, no one goes down.
>> so the pay grade of their job could potentially be classified down near seven such jobs?
>> correct.
>> but their salary would not change even if the pay grade of their job title went down.
>> correct.
basically from a pay standpoint, they are being treated just as if the job moved zero pay grades.
so if a job was a 16 and it's now still a 16, there's no increase associate with that.
it's the exact same as if you were a 16 and went down to 15, you get no increase.
I mean --
>> but you don't get a decrease either.
>> > there's no decrease, no increase for either scenario.
>> I was wondering when you were going to say that and looking at that earlier and I think that basically hit the nail on the head as far as anyone not taking a decrease, per se.
I'm glad you brought that point up because it wasn't really laid out earlier.
it just appeared those particular positions are taking a decrease would actually end up decreasing salary, money, what people spend.
but anyway, I'm glad that got clarity.
go ahead, I'm sorry.
>> it's at a lower grade that is correct could affect their starting salary.
>> that's on board right now though.
that's the whole point.
that's on board right now don't have to worry about taking a decrease.
a decrease as far as salary is concerned.
>> diane and todd to that point since you raised it as far as somebody new coming on board, is -- as I understand the proposal that's coming from the compensation committee, this will alleviate to some degree -- our new methodology for doing market salary surveys in total rather than in pieces will alleviate to some degree the issue of long serving employee watch a new employee come in at the same pay grade and job title at a higher salary because the market has moved often and he we haven't yet adjusted their salary based on markets.
>> that's one of the reason the committee recommended we look at everybody at one time.
because when we heard anecdotally if you happen to be reviewed on a lean year and you there wasn't a lot of money, you didn't get the same implementation dollars.
we're going to have to watch and compare when somebody comes in not just a proposed salary but what is the internal equity and we do that on a regular basis and talk to the departments on a regular basis.
>> thanks.
>> I would say most if not all of the departments are very much aware of what their internal equity relationships are and cheap a close eye on it.
>> todd, what's the source of this methodology?
>> excuse me?
>> where does this methodology come from?
>> for the costing?
>> the proposed comp policy.
that's exactly where we took it.
we figured if the court was going to pass it that's what we should use.
the three and a half percent times the mid point of the new proposed grade.
that came directly from the policy proposed by the compensation committee.
>> where did the compensation committee get the proposed policy.
>> the compensation committee considered a number of different options for how to cost out market salary survey.
and in fact, the issue leroy raised that you sent us back to look at again revolved around this question how you cost it out, market salary survey adjustment.
and we looked at numerous of them and this was the one that in fact rather elegantly, I think, solved the issue of compression.
because the issue that you raised, Commissioner Eckhardt, was not only caused by not -- by funding market salary surveys differently in different years, but it was all funded by the funding policy that you had which could actually have people giving a market increase and no increase in pay.
so they might be 15% out on their old range and wind up at the beginning of their new range.
a new person is hired, hired at the beginning and so there's no separation between the two.
but this was a rather elegant method and I'm glad diane gives us the credit, but actually I think it was diane who proposed this, but it was discussed along with of a number of different options and this is the one that the compensation committee looked at.
we all just kind of looked and said wow, that works, that actually makes sense.
it's a way to do it that solves lots of those problems we've been facing year over year with market salary increases.
so it didn't come from another -- another job site as far as I know or another employer.
it was an idea that was raised internally and considered along with a number of other ideas.
but I don't think there was a single dissent on the compensation committee or anyone who felt that this wasn't the way, the best way that we had come across to resolve some of those issues that we've been fighting for years.
>> have we shared this methodology with the county managers?
>> yes, sir.
>> do we think they shared with their employees?
>> I hope so.
>> we'll ask them specific recommendations, based on what I'm seeing in the backup, what we have here is how each and every county employee will be affected if covered.
right?
>> correct.
>> we have added the jobs departments that are not covered.
but if you are covered, then we should be able to go to this backup and find out specifically what's recommended as to you and your position.
>> correct.
it would be absolutely you would go to mid point, say I'm moving two grades, multiply that times three and a half percent and multiple by that times the mid point.
so areas it looks complicated but it's really not that complicated and we will be -- travis has already figured out for everything affected person, have you not?
>> yes.
we -- p.b.o.
costed it out, hrmd -- excuse me, sent out final recommendation, that was included for all departments by slot.
departments have that information for every employee they have.
>> do we think employees have been given this information or are we in the process of sharing it?
>> no, I don't think the employees, I wouldn't personally tell somebody they were getting a raise if I didn't know, you know, they are getting a raise.
>> but what's in this packet, what's being proposed is the 2699 Travis County employees are going to have upward adjustment.
>> correct.
>> I want to be clear, this is a costing methodology that treats the employees better than they would have been treated under the old costing methodology.
I don't know how many employees have heard about it or not, but if it's properly explained, a employee ought to understand this is actually an improvement and will, at the risk of saying it, will result in more money for an employee that gets an increase than under the old costing methodology.
>> of this 2699 employees all will at least see a one pay grade movement which will be 3.5% of the mid point of the pay grade where you are now.
>> yes.
>> presuming you are not red lined.
>> presuming you are not red lined.
>> when will it be implemented.
and, of course, we have the cost, but what has come to my attention is implementation.
now, it's such as the possible April 1st recommendation on the market salary surveys, but there also -- may be some other twists that may be put into this with the different categories that we have before us.
so knowing that and maybe some problematic thing, maybe not problematic, I think it can all be done, in my opinion.
but then again that is correct has been part of the first of a lot of this.
all right, you got the market salary survey.
all right, here's what we're going to do as far as the pay, here's the money that's set aside to pay for it.
but the next question is when.
so April -- I understand April 1 may be an option that may be available to us for a six-month period for implementation.
April through September, in fact.
as far as some of the things we've been looking at.
so I guess my question is -- and, of course, mixing that in even jim brought up a point earlier about the performance-based pay.
okay, you look at that whether it be 1% or 2%.
maybe going and carrying over into fiscal year 13.
but at any rate, looking at the implementation date which we have looked at and others have asked questions on, along with possibility even throwing pops into it at that three and a half percent, I don't know if we can end up doing that.
it may be legal constraints, I don't really know, but I think it's a lot of stuff to table and I know folks are want to go get an answer soon as what we can do and as far as the implementation.
I think the auditors have a role in it, I think all of us have a role in it.
I'm curious to narrow down and focus down on where we are as far as that's concerned, what are the consequence of implementing this back up to April 1 for a six-month period, seeing that we got a certain set aside money on hand that we can deal with to deal with this m.s.s.
and go from there.
but I know I'm not getting ahead of you, travis, I'm trying not to, but I know there has been some real legitimate questions that have come up with that concern and also looking at the possibility of doing maybe all of it.
and I think it's a possibility we can do all of it, but there are different twists and wiggles on all of this that I'm trying to make sure we can fit it and do it whereby everybody is in the same -- same position of some type of compensation.
so as much as we possibly can.
so that's basically where I just wanted to throw that out and you all can continue if you don't mind.
>> would it please the court for me to briefly go over the costing before we talk about implementation?
>> it would please us very much.
>> okay.
on page 34 and 35 of your backups it's the costing from p.b.o.
and I want to thank jeremy broadhead and my office, or our office who worked side by side with me and did a lot of the heavy lifting.
page 34 is just the market salary by itself and 35 is the market salary survey along with other potential compensation issues you may want to -- you may be considering this year or next year.
also I'd like to point out that we've shown the information with all funding sources just because when diane todd went over the slots involved those were the various funding sources in the county.
that's the general fund, special revenue fund, that are grants, cscd state and local funds and also other local funding sources.
those all added together, those folks that were looked at so I wanted to show it by funding source.
when we with look at the total survey for all sources it's -- it's $7,854,000.
that's on page 35.
just the general fund only it's about 5.5 million.
>> and that's an annual.
>> that's correct, that's an ongoing annual amount and that includes benefits.
go back to the road and bridge fund, that's about 600,000.
courthouse security fund a little under 8,000.
remaining special revenue funds 139,000.
cscd state and local funds 678,000.
grants about 406,000.
other funding sources a little over 44,000.
it's under 7.5 million.
then as we move down, I want to highlight the other compensation issues.
then we can move on to what we think the general fund cost is going to be.
and so one thing, whenever we looked at this in October, it appeared that the salary base rank and file was going to go up about 3.5% overall.
that includes people receiving increases and people at market.
for planning purposes we estimated what was that amount would be for three and a half percent applied to elected officials and that cost is a little under 69,000.
we also said since the auditor's office and purchasing weren't participating in the study, we also wanted to show if they were treated similarly to the people in the study what would that look like and three and a half percent for the auditor's office is $272,580.
reroy, if you want to add anything.
and for comparison purposes we wanted to show what a 3.5% increase would look like for pops, in the jeff and courthouse security fund.
that's a little over 3.5 million.
if you add all the funding sources for the market salary survey and for the other compensation it's it's a little over $11 million.
we mention a $11 million number and that's how we came up with that.
early on in the survey we didn't have the details to understand what part is a general fund cost versus road and bridge versus a grants cost.
we have those numbers now.
if we move over one column to the cost.
at this point unless there were programmatic changes in the road and bridge fund, we don't believe the road and bridge fund could support ongoing increase right now.
we've included that as a general fund cost.
the same for courthouse security.
typically when you add a position in courthouse security you increase the transfer to the courthouse security fund by that same amount.
>> the 11 million that I showed in the f.y.
13 budge wet parameters was shown all as general fund.
and as you can see some of these are not general fund.
even -- so that 11 million is more than what is needed to implement the general fund portion of this.
in conversation with with the county auditor, whatever the court would appropriate for the auditor's office, she is requested that they not do that this fiscal year, that due to the s.a.p.
be fit project that her request would be to reserve that for action in f.y.
13.
>> as far as -- as far as --
>> implementing her salary.
>> whatever -- we just use these amounts for the other areas as place holders.
and what she has -- I don't know, if you want to say anything else, susan, but through the workload of the bfit and her staff she would prefer not to try to do something this fiscal year.
>> we're red hot in the middle of the implementation of the
>> [inaudible].
the average hours that you are our people have put in for the last 100 days has been 60 hours a week.
christina there sitting over there is putting in about 85 hours a week.
there is -- when we talked about implementing bfit, I was clear will three judge panel were certain things we were not going to be able to do this year.
we were going to have to hold some things at a level because there wasn't the staffing for it.
we simply do not have the staff to go look at market and that type of thing this year.
there has never been an implementation like this that I'm aware of where there is absolutely no money available for people that are putting in the kind of hours and time that my people are putting in.
so my preference would be if money is allocated to us, I would prefer putting that out on a performance basis.
the -- when you talked about our being outside of the -- the compensation system, and that is true, and it wasn't a casual thing.
we at the last market salary survey, we participated with the rest of the county and the job descriptions were so dumbed down we could not plea cute at those levels.
the point that we require the degrees that we require, the level of computer knowledge that we require as well as auditing were all deemed as not necessary in the job descriptions.
all of those are critical for people who do the jobs that they have to do.
another difference is that our people are expected, the exempt people, to work far in excess of 40 hours a work as normal workload.
that is not the standard in the county.
when they work extra hours we do not comp them.
we figure that's your workload when you are in accounting shop you work longer, that's just how it goes.
the other thing we do not allow our people to work at home because we can't get the work done if they do that.
it's an advantage to not come to work and we think that as a compensation difference.
we thought very carefully about pulling out of the compensation system.
we talked about that in the comp committee, and the general conversation without a vote was we really think you ought to operate as the rest of the county and I'm telling you I can't do that and deliver the quality or technical work that we need to do.
the job descriptions that we have put together are tied into a comprehensive performance evaluation system which is based on the hay system.
one of the top personnel consulting systems in the country.
we have been using performance evaluations tied to those job descriptions for, I don't know, ten years.
it's not something new.
our people are evaluated for performance.
so I would again say that this is not something that we have time to do.
we are doing all we can to get this system up.
if in fact it is critical for you for me to participate in that and take my people off and put tolling paqs, I would recommend that we delay the implementation of bfit and terminate it and I can bring that proposal to you.
but it is not possible for us to bring this very complex system up with the kind of hours that my people are putting in and the pressure they are under and pick up extra duties.
if you want me to go and get a quote of what it might take to bring a consulting firm in to help us with that to do that, I'll be glad to do that.
but it's -- it's a fact of life.
we are trying to bring it in in the budget you approved with the workload we discussed and we are buried under to do this.
it is difficult.
everyone is cooperating, we're getting full cooperation in the county.
it's going well, but it's just an extremely difficult process.
so unfortunately we are in a time where, you know, when we brought up -- when the year 2000 rolled around, there were bonuses for people who -- who made that system work and stayed with it.
I don't have any of that.
so we have nothing to give our people and that's why I am asking that if in fact you allocate 3.5%, my preference would be that we use that performance for people who are absolutely maxing out right now.
that's kind of where I'm coming from on this.
>> so you are saying that if there's a 3.5% for the auditor's office, then you would prefer to hold that in abeyance until the next budget year so you can can distribute it as performance pay.
>> I would love getting some this year, no question about that, but I'm okay waiting.
what I'm saying is we can with not do the work of a market salary.
and I think we're at market.
I don't think it's going to result in anything.
to get a cpa now you need a master's degree or 150 hours.
we have 21 cpas in our office.
we've just got a high level 'of people and I don't want to lose them.
if you were giving everyone 3.5% this year, I would love to have it for half a year, whatever, I would love to have that to pass ought for performance for people who really deserve it and need it at this time, but if you can't do that, I will wait until next year.
>> so I think what the question though was in terms of implementation of those divisions that are covered by the market salary survey, which auditors is not.
>> no, we are not.
>> with regard to those covered, even though I recognize that travis is saying we costed it as though auditor office was going to get 3.5%, but but forthe saving question, we e laid aside money to fund that midyear for six months.
so from -- from -- because the auditor does payroll and payroll is covered by bfit, when is the earliest that we could implement the markettal salary adjustment for those divisions that are covered by the northern arkansas salary survey?
>> now we're talking about a separate issue as well.
and remember when, you know, and I apologize to all of you out there.
I know you want a raise, I want you to get one too.
my people feel exactly the same way.
when we talked about putting this into reserves at the beginning of the year the issue came up we are in the middle of a major financial system implementation and what could we do.
and I had serious concerns about with when the timing would be and, you know, I think we all kind of said, well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
we're at that bridge right now.
we are at right now in the last throes of bringing up phase 1 at the same time we are programming payroll as we speak, and then we'll start implementing to get ready to go live on that.
we're doing that right now.
and just so you understand this, the people that are doing that, not the core group, but let me just talk about my payroll people.
they still have the same job they did before on hde.
now they have bfit laying on top the of it.
it isn't as though their workload has decreased.
christina programs all these mass actions.
she runs our systems division.
she runs ht the way the and she's the project manager for bfit and that's why she's putting in 85 hours a week.
she's the one person we have that can program this.
she looked at what you would like to do and there's some legal questions that were given to the county attorney, and she could do the programming in August.
and our suggestion would be if you want to make this effective April 1, certainly could understand that, that in fact the actual implementation date of that would be August when she can do that and that the money employees would have gotten from April 1 through that day they get as a lump sum, that difference, and then their new increased pay goes on.
so they would -- they would get the money, but they would get a lump sum from April 1 if that's when you chose to implement until August.
that is the very best that we can do.
one of the things we looked at is can we hire someone tolls come in and do it.
and the reality is we have programmed that.
it would take her as long to train a person to program it as do it herself.
now, there are other implementation issues and that is how many people are we talking about, 2700?
2600 pafs have to be entered.
those cannot be retroactively entered or pushed back because our system that we have today does not do that.
so it's not a choice that we have.
so what we have to do is those will all have to be manually entered and they will have to by departments or whatever, and then they will have to be manually set into the payroll systems and audited.
we've kind of been trying to put our brains together to figure how to do that.
and h.r.
is willing to jump in and help with that.
if departments do their own entries and we're going to need overtime money for nonexcel people because they are going to have to push the button and plug it all in at the end.
so there aren't perfect solutions.
I think that is a solution which gives our people money the date you want to make it effective.
you know, they will get a lump sum.
that's the best I know.
if you want something other than that, I can go out and see if we can hire a consulting firm to do it and I'm willing to do that.
so it's kind of -- go ahead.
>> I wanted to clarify what susan is saying.
if we want to do it as a mass action, even if you want to make it effective April 1, what we're talking about is implementation as a lump sum for the August 1 through the 15 payday.
we're talking about you get a lump sum but it will encompass April 1 until then.
there's some calculations that have to be done over time, et cetera, a lot of calculations have to go.
>> you would get the same amount of money in this budget year, it would just not come --
>> [multiple voices]
>> or we're talking about a manual process where the h.r.
liaisons would enter their own and we would work with payroll to verify checks.
it would be difficult to do those.
it would take cooperation of every department out there.
so -- and I think christina can speak to that a little bit more.
>> I guess we're talking about two different things.
I wanted to make sure because that's really a payroll question, that's not a question for me to hold overtime calculation rate.
I mean there are two options here.
we can have the departments enter everything manually up front and that's more workload for h.r.
and p.b.o.
to process through those and approve and have to validate each one.
what it feels like to me we maybe need to get on the same page and figure out if the manual option is an option because that's not for me to answer, that's really for somebody else.
>> and we can't -- some members of the auditor's office and the county attorney and p.b.o.
kind of worked out various scenarios.
unfortunately christina wasn't able to join us and just to work out some of those options.
>> the manual one is really for somebody else to determine whether --
>> we also wanted to
>> [inaudible] thinking you are probably not going to vote on it today and if you told us where you wanted we go we can come back next week.
>> have departments done this kind of work?
>> they do enter paf every time they make a change and it comes through our department.
and he approve them and go to p.b.o.
taken auditor's office do do final approval.
>> but they don't enter these in mass -- one or two here or there?
>> usually judge the way we've done tonight the past we've done a mass entry.
we've got the rules of what you wanted and then we did a mass entry on the system.
and the beauty of the mass entry is if the programming and the rules are right, you don't have to
>> [inaudible].
so normally we do do --
>> the way it usually works, h.r.
starts by updating the job descriptions and all the jobs that need to move to something different, right?
at the job level.
then I step in and get every slot to the right place where it needs to be.
we don't have that many.
just whatever you had the 70 something or whatever.
the ones that are associated with the wrong job, right?
right.
and then I turn around and I generate all the reclassification pafs based on the pitches of that year's implementation, right?
what are the rules.
should they be able to be changed by the department, should they be able to reject them?
what is it they should be able to do.
I get that input from h.r., what is it you wanted to do.
>> let me ask a question.
April 1st effective date, somewhere you get a lump sum between August 1st and August 15th, somewhere 15th of August being the latest date, lump sum payment, how much work is involved to do that if the effective date is backed up to April 1?
hold on before you answer.
compared to -- compared to implementation date as far as April 1 being the implementation date, and what's necessary from the departments to do manual.
since you are suggesting manual is maybe more tedious, but departments getting involved a little more intensely than they have in the past.
what would that take to go from that scenario which would actually end up being April 1 implementation date and, of course, six months to September.
of this year.
>> I'm going to let beth answer the part -- so the first question what -- what does it mean.
the lump sum was something that I threw out there saying that I can do that -- that's not a problem for me.
I've done that before, but we've always done it for performance for people red lined.
I know there's some concern with the lump sum from the county attorney's office or no we're good?
okay.
so to do a lump sum assuming it doesn't have any effect on overtime or anything, there is no --
>> it would have --
>> complications.
there's an impact on year time.
we don't believe that could work.
>> one at a time.
>> okay.
so that's not --
>> there's a legal issue we would like to discuss with you in executive session.
we would prefer not to discuss the legal issue in public.
>> that's fine.
from my standpoint, there is no extra effort with -- with the lump sum.
it comes through payroll.
>> okay.
versus the implementation date of April 1, this fiscal year, and looking at a six-month period through September with the departments getting involved, doing the pafs and all those other kind of things required to make the same thing happen.
>> the efforts -- for me to develop the pieces once I know what it is we want to do, we first got to get on the same page as far as what the rules need to look like.
there's no difference in effort for me in doing it for April 1 tore August 1.
I just don't have another minute to work on it right now.
that's my problem.
I'm trying to work as hard as I can.
there's no difference in effort for me if we want to do it automatic.
it's just the time.
I don't have the time.
that's why the manual option was floated to get me out as a roadblock is to have the departments enter the pafs manually and, you know, that depends on the size of the department and how many pafs you are talking about.
>> do you feel fairly confident that you would be able to meet the August 1 deadline if we get departments to assist by making the manual entries?
>> if I do the August 1, there's no need for manual entries.
I am doing the work for them.
but h.r.
and payroll and them still have to do the
>> [indiscernible] piece.
unless they tell -- that's still to be sorted out.
there's no manual entry for the departments affected.
we want the departments to approve every paf which sometimes we do want them to and sometimes we don't.
and that's again back to the rules that h.r.
wants me to implement.
then they would have to approve every paf if that's the route we decide to go.
does that answer your question or --
>> it answers mine.
>> there might be a lot of manual work for payroll if you end up doing a lump sum depending on how you decided to it.
because we probably have to calculate those manually.
>> let me ask this then.
looking at what we have here now, I don't know which way the court is going to go, but manual versus lump sum, there's a legal issue with lump sum.
let me also throw this into the mix.
what about the advent of the three and a half percent for persons that are on pops to be also looked into this scenario.
because you combine all of this even with the pops amount of money that's available, rank and file and also pops, it would still be able to look at it as far as coming in in a six-month scenario over a two -- 12 and also 13.
so what -- what -- what -- what consequence or would there be a consequence, and even though pops is separate from classified, but there's still a request we're looking at as far as pops concerned especially if you look at the total amount of pops, about $3.5 million, whatever it was, but also looking at that particular scenario over the two-year period which will be a -- million dollars.
is that something that could also be done?
>> I think a lot would depend on how the three and a half percent got implemented.
if it was a across the board adjustment to the scale and every employee got a three and a half% increase, I don't want to speak for christina, but I think that's a relatively easy programming --
>> it's all the logistics of it, right, because things are happening that we need to keep the old scale for a while and then we need the new scale and the quality of, you know.
>>
>> [inaudible] the sheriff's office and the people on the pops scale, the different folks because the steps aren't three and a half percent.
there's within some concern because people haven't been moved along the steps so there may be a mixed way they would want to do that and I would want to talk to the sheriffs and the majors and find out how they would want to -- just moving the scale you are going to have people two to three years still on step 1.
even though they've gotten increases you've got compression.
somebody new coming in a step 1, then somebody been here four years still on step 1.
I would want to talk to the sheriff's office and find out you notice, you got this marker now, what would be the most effective way to implement this.
>> but the short answer is if you are going to do a paf for everybody on pops, you are looking at another 1200 pafs.
>> so is payroll comfortable with the August 1 implementation date?
>> well, again, it depends on how we decide to implement it.
if there's a lump sum involved, depending on how they did that, we may need to still go back and do manual calculationss.
>> but if we have on to do a manual calculations how much nor more time would we need to add if any.
>> I think we would just work toward that date.
>> judge, some of that depends on the legally think we're going to get.
how many manual calculations.
>> good legal advice August 1, bad legal advice December 1.
>> I think they always give good legal advice.
>> anything else we need to hear today?
we have to go into executive session on that -- higher than authority item anyway.
yes, sir.
I'm sorry, did I cut you off?
anything else, court members?
>> is there any -- for all of us that are working on this, is there any direction -- is the court interested in us attempting to evaluate what it would take to manually hit an April 1?
I can tell you based on ten minutes per paf, that's the review at h.r., that's the payroll and p.b.o.'s review, that's about 483 hours.
of works.
so if in fact the court would like for us to spend time between now and next Tuesday, we'll be glad to.
and see the logistics of get you some better numbers on that.
if in fact you would like to go with a mass on August 1, well then christina is pretty well assured us that we can get there, but not with a lump sum backward depending on your legal advice.
so can the court give all of us that are working very hard here any indication of what you would like for us to do this week in preparation for next Tuesday?
>> I would very much like you all to explore what the earliest possible implementation date is for the market salary survey-
>> [applause] -- because we know exactly how many employees are below market and what we can do about it under budget.
so the faster we could go ahead and get this money distributed in the manner we havealready identified the better.
>> [applause]
>> we will all continue working toward that and report back to the court next Tuesday on what we believe is the best possible implementation.
>> and also if you possibly can, not on the rank and file classified, we want to make it all encompassing.
I know the purchasing agent also wanted to opt out.
I don't know if the same applies to the purchasing folk as -- but we put the a money out there, they had not opt out.
but we also I think need to look at the -- and someone suggested something from the sheriff's folks as far as how they are looking at that three and a half percent.
maybe something -- I don't really know what the suggestion is as far as putting on the table.
I think we ought to be all inclusive and I don't think no employee should have to struggle wondering what the end result of this thing will be.
and I just think we need to move forward as quickly as possible and I really do.
>> I would make a remark about that.
for my money, which isn't my money, it's the taxpayers, money, I would like to prioritize, though, those 2,700 individuals single-member district who 2,700 who are below market.
>> [one moment, please, for change in captioners]
>> I don't understand, however, we could approve city forward this session with the a approval of the job analysis of the market salary survey that are completed.
the numbers that are attached to that survey are right in exactly the ballpark that we had discussed and what you had earmarked money for.
I think it would be a consulation, and certainly the employees today if this whole business could be adopted and put behind us and not somethings that looming out there.
>> [applause].
and having to do with the implement dates and I don't want to sound insensitive but I am going to, I am sure having to do with the work that is required to make this happen on the date that you said you wanted to see it happened which was April 1st.
this was not a secret.
this was something that was discussed and agreed to last December.
if there were concerns having to do with the ability to make that implementation date for April 1, I didn't hear them.
I didn't hear them express at the time.
had they been, they might have been in a better position to take some steps along the way to facilitate having this thing being able to be implemented April 1, a lot of these manual entries could have been behind us.
I don't know.
it just seems you are asking more patience of these workers who I think have been patient far too long already in waiting for this to happen.
>> [applause] I mean the study and recommendations everything that has come forward in and of itself has been a two and a half year project that they have been waiting earnestly for the result on this and it has been many years before that, before they have seen the kind of full implementation to market that we are finally going to accomplish this time and I can't look these folks in the eye and say just be patient, a few more months or -- and who knows what twists and turns come along the way.
let's get this job done.
if it causes delays in other areas, so be it.
I am asking you to make these folks the priority today.
>> [applause]
>> I want to ask you something that I would also like to ask of the full compensation committee.
with regard to -- I know we have implementation timing issue we will spend another week looking at but you say you feel you think there are some things we could do today and I want to get from you, with specificity what those things are.
I am assuming it is the -- the recommendation for pay grade adjustment and the formula for what to do when an employee's pay grade is adjusted?
>> exactly.
and all the parameters that scott -- sorry, that todd pointed out to you on who is included, who is not, all of that.
the one thing that seems to be hanging out there.
it was addressed but I will need some clarification, our understanding and our expectation is that reclassifications are done in conjunction with these market studieses.
that it makes no sense to do market adjustment on an individual to come back sometime later and reclassify them into a different job, which may be in a different pay range.
you have done adjustment in some cases isn't warranted, in other cases, they wouldn't enjoy the benefit of that adjustment, so my understanding -- or my reck aration is -- my recommendation is that any of the reclassifications that emerged, how many, 60 plus of them will be included in this market study.
>> have we included the job reclass?
>> we have and our recommendations was these reclasses be done but that and historicallies the my understanding that the reclasses have been done and funded within the market study amount of dollars.
in other words, there is amount of dollars that included the reclasseses.
what we are trying to move to is that we would ask the departments, like on any other reclass on any other year, to find the money within the department to pay for it.
where not go to court and ask for money if they can't find the money to pay for it.
there is a reason for this.
let me explain the reason.
we are looking at -- reclasses are just a normal course of business.
it's not something that comes with the market study only.
it is a best practice to look at position analysis questionnaires, to make sure that perhaps there is somebody who is working in a job that has not been reclassed.
the manager has not asked it be reclassed and it pops out that way.
they should be reclassed.
they should get the corresponding salary adjustment, if so.
there is only a couple of reasons why you are working in a reclass.
either -- you are in reclass position.
either the department has changed the way they are doing work, which means you had the budget to do that work and now you changed it so you need to find the internal budget to do that or you are performing a new service and if that's the case you need to go to court and get the money to perform the new service.
what I don't want to see happen is us having people that are in a new job for maybe three years and we have -- and because we are not doing a market salary survey those years they are being underclassed for three years instead of us saying, you know what, we need to get the budget and reclass this job right now because it has the potential to hurt people, too.
I am not recommending we do not fund that and if we have problems funding it internally this time because it is a new proposal, then, absolutely, roll it in, it is $272,000, I believe, we can roll it in but with the understanding that we need to reclass jobs when the jobs change and get people the correct salary when the jobs change and not wait for 4 years.
>> [applause]
>> so all you are saying -- your proposal is just to recognize the job reclassifications are not actually part of compensation and market salary adjustment?
>> it is not a market issue.
you are not working in the right job.
we should take care of that when it happens and not just part of the market salary survey because it is easier to get the money at that time.
>> so job reclass -- you arepositing a job reclass as manager sees from a paq or their experience --
>> or gave more job duties to somebody.
>> or gave more job duties to somebody, that they should be able to come at any time during the budget cycle.
>> and they do.
we have people is for reclasses but sometimes it is harder for departments to say do you know what, we don't have the internal funds.
they want them to go through the budget cycle then and present we need the money at this point to provide the services we want to.
it is above board way of doing it and doing it at the right time.
not waiting 4 years.
>> let me ask this question.
the attorney sitting here to my left.
those particular recommendations that greg just made, those specificities that he just laid out and of course we heard the reclass and those other things, I heard you say that we've got to take something in for legal and stuff like that.
but is there anything that on these particular specificities that could be outside of the legal advice you are looking to give us as far as specifics?
>> the legal advice we want to share with you does not relate to reclassifications.
>> we just need to move approval of it, then, in my opinion?
>> [applause]
>> let's move approval.
and then --
>> can I ask greg, jim, as the chair of the compensation committee.
the question that I had asked or greg is what -- aside from our timing issues and the legal issues and does the compensation committee, speaking as the chair of compensation committee, aside from the timing issues, is there -- do you feel that we could, if the Commissioners court chose to make a motion, go ahead and vote the pay grade adjustments as recommended by hr based on the salary survey and the formula of how to -- how to achieve those adjustments based on the compensation committee's recommendation without having to address until next week the timing issue?
>> I will be switching hats here.
lawyer hat, there is no legal reason why you cannot do exactly what greg is asking.
make a vote on the approval of the market study.
>> [applause] and vote on the --
>> funding formula.
>> the funding formula.
indeed, if there aren't any legal issues in that, it is entire policy decision of the court.
switching out to compensation committee hat,s thes my understanding of the policy and it is fairly complex and feel free to correct me if you want to, that there one nothing, if you decided to do that today, there would be nothing about doing that that would be inconsistent with the compensation policy.
that the committee recommended.
the court hasn't adopted that compensation policy yet, so --
>> will that compensation policy finally come to Commissioners court.
>> before you right now.
it has been before you since last fall and you can vote on it any time that you choose to vote on it.
I think there is some complicated issues you will want to work through with that before you take that vote but there is nothing about doing that greg is recommending that would be inconsistent with the compensation committee's recommendation on the policy.
>> I was under misunderstanding, though.
I thought that we were awaiting some final something or the other from the compensation committee to finally vote.
>> that came in the letter.
>> on the policy.
>> that I sent to judge Biscoe some time ago.
so you do have the full recommendation now.
you can vote today if you chose.
>> at the beginning of the presentation, it was covered in jim's letter in that those were the three action steps we felt as the compensation committee were left to be taken.
>> okay.
>> so the reclasses recommendation language is on page 32 on todd's backup?
>> yes, it is.
we are recommending that you --
>> all right.
that's good enough.
>> [laughter]
>> so what is the amount, travis?
>> sure, one is, as todd mentioned, there is some reclasses that are actually going to result in no cost.
there is a few small reclasses that are actually a going to result in savings on the market salary survey because there is a couple of jobs without the reclass they go up one pay grade and receive a market adjustment.
with the reclass they stay the same but if looking just for the increases only, it is $277,710, if you include those that are -- that would result in some savings to the market salary survey, the net of all of those together would be $244,615 the.
and again those are not included in the market salary survey.
that is the annual amount with benefits.
>> so if the departments affected cannot pick up any of those, total would be 277,000?
>> for the increases, correct.
>> yeah.
now, I don't have any problem with any of the recommendations we have heard today but I am asking for a one-week courtesy postponement.
I am not ready to act on this today.
but I met with the committee members last Friday, spent time over the weekend and all of this makes sense to me.
but there are a whole lot of issues, so as for my vote, it comes next Tuesday and I am exercising a one-week courtesy postponement.
the reason is, this is a complicated matter and we seldom act the first time we hear it in open court and it's a good, good -- good government practice that I think we ought to keep following.
what I can do, though, next week is put this early on the agenda, if that will help.
we will put it at the agenda at 1:45 today to give those who wanted to come down a time certain.
so that's where I stand.
and if we adhere to the good government courtesy extension, that will be out automatically granted and we do it all the time.
so sorry to rain on the parade, but I mean, you have my support unless something dramatically unexpected happens between now and next Tuesday.
and since I have been briefed a couple of times already, I feel confident that we should do this, but there are specifics I think that we ought to decide one way or the other before we take action.
>> and I totally agree.
>> yes.
>> and I totally agree.
we usually grant that to each other as a courtesy, but in addition to that, I wanted to make sure that we were all very sensitive, just like we are sensitive to your needs, that you would be sensitive to the things that this court has to do, and sometime ago we decided we did have to bring in the beefette and we had old system and we didn't want to wait until we break down the implementation of the beefett and we all have different rolls in the government we are accountable for to the people for money we collect and certainly it falls to the auditor's office and I want to be very sensitive and respectful to the role that she has to make sure that this government is accountable to our taxpayers, so that's why the beefett has kind of come in and kind of made it a little difficult for us and this, too, shall pass and we will move on and do the rest of the job that we have to do.
so thank you.
>> per the judge's request and we normally grant any member of this court a one-week courtesy on any item, and I am going to withdraw the motion that I made earlier with that because of the request of judge Biscoe made.
and each Commissioner -- each member of this court, rather, is granted a delay when it comes to any item on this agenda if they aren't ready.
so I want everybody to understand with that.
so with that, I withdraw my motion.
>> I didn't know there was a motion, actually.
>> yes, I did.
I made one.
>> [laughter]
>> ms. Porter would have found that motion to be out of order.
>> [laughter]
>> anything further on 19?
>> in executive session.
>> okay.
>> very quickly, the project of this nature with this many slots and this many jobs involved, we try to work with the department to the extent that we can but inevitably there is always going to be a couple of jobs, a couple of classifications where the departments may not be in complete agreement with where hrmd is at today so, therefore, next week prior to taking action, I would ask that we open up to the department if they want to speak on a particular classification, if we can't work it out between now and then, that they have the opportunity to come to the table and speak to it.
>> I hear you suggested two things.
one is they contact you before Tuesday.
>> absolutely.
>> to discuss and try to work it out.
two is if they have not been able to do that, then they come Tuesday and voice whatever concerns they have.
>> some of us have talked to them and we have said if you want to come before the court, obviously come before the court and bring your statistics, but, you know -- bring your -- if you have different market data that we have or, you know, certainly I am sure the court would want to hear that.
we are open to that.
>> I just think it is a matter of the department, if they have a disagreement, to be able to air it before anybody makes decision.
>> that's fine with me.
greg, anything else?
>> the sheriff asked me to -- he was seen earlier and he had to leave for a 3:00 o'clock appointment.
he just wanted to make his presence known to you and that he was in full support of asme's recommendations that I voiced to you today.
>> okay.
anybody else?
then we will call this item up for executive session and discussion at the appropriate time this afternoon.
I think that's about 30 minutes from now.
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.
Subscribe for updates