Travis County Commissioners Court
March 13, 2012 (Agenda)
Item 6
6 is to consider appropriate action including job analysis project conducted by hrmd during fiscal year 2012.
6 b implementation and date for other market recommendations.
c, employees not covered by the market survey, including purchasing department, auditor's office and employees on the peace officer pay scale.
and 6 d, outstanding issues from compensation policy report.
and general schedule for follow-up action.
good morning.
>> > good morning, judge, Commissioners. >> > we were asked to bring information back in. >> > you resolved it. >> > Sam Biscoe or the Commissioner's court? >> > Commissioners' court. >> > did you meet with the management? >> > yes. >> > did y'all reach agreement? >> > we did not have any disagreement with them, that we're aware of. >> > where an agreement has not been reached, I guess whether it is marcus zeller survey, adjustment or reclass, there is nothing to keep hrmd to keep from continuing to meet with the department, I take it? >> > correct. >> > it would be much more difficult to change a pay grade than it would to do a reclass. >> > departments have the opportunity for >> [indiscernible] and reviewed by h.r. >> > I understand there are still some pay grade issues that are outstanding. >> > not very much. >> > just a few. >> > I would say that we are recommending we benchmark those in the coming benchmark year. >> > when? >> > we're proposing the new comp policy is benchmarked every year that we don't have a market salary survey, a countywide market survey. >> > where we know that issues exist today, why don't we meet with the department tomorrow or next week? Why wait a year? Why don't we resolve it now? >> > we have met the departments, the market data is not supporting what we want to see happen. >> > if it is the court's direction that we continue to meet with the department on any unresolved issues, we would be happy to do so. >> > it is my preference. >> > sure. >> > I would feel a lot better if we put some time and energy into just resolving them immediately, if we can. >> > ok. >> > >> [indiscernible] for bringing those that have not been resolved. >> > susan? >> > >> [inaudible] implementation plan, which is extremely tight. >> > I understand. >> > and what we are recommending is that the bulk of them be done on April 1. >> > April 1 out here, too. >> > historically, we have had issues like this in the past over market surveys. >> > so, guess, my question, I guess is that we did receive implementation schedule per se with several steps. >> > one or two cases I know about, we should try to resolve immediately. >> > good morning, Travis County clerk, dana davaeau. >> > where does it need to be at? >> > one pay grade, the chief deputy for the tax office. >> > 31. >> > 31. >> > this one, I don't have a fundamental disagreement with it either way. >> > thank you. >> > we could not find any record in the history where this job was ever put at the same salary grade as the tax office. >> > our amendments should show that. >> > and I'll go do the research. >> > it is probably there. >> > we speak through our minutes. >> > we all remember it happening. >> > right. >> > let's add that to the short list of issues. >> > it is on the list. >> > that was not on my list by the way. >> > we're probably down to two or three. >> > well, since we are talking about reclasses and adjustments, anyone else in here want to add to the short list? >> > yes, judge. >> > ms. Britain. >> > community services division director with Travis County health and human services and veteran services. >> > yes, sir? >> > >> [indiscernible] >> > back and forth as folks are coming here to add to the short list, which I have no qualm with that. >> > if I could respond to that. >> > can somebody respond and talk to me. >> > I will do that, sir, and I think todd will join in. >> > and by all means, we're not trying to short change anybody. >> > they were on the short -- I would say we're reviewing the issue and it will take more time to resolve the reclasses. >> > it is not our intention to delay the process. >> > I will say that I think debra is correct. >> > how many departments do you have on your list? >> > how many departments? >> > can we get the work done in two weeks. >> > the 27th, two weeks from today is the last possible time for the court to approve something in order to get it in effective April 1 and to be on the employee's paycheck, anytime after that, the changes would have to go in at a later date, possibly effective April 15 or later. >> > this is Travis County. >> > I understand. >> > I guess my request is that we get as much done as we can between now at the 27th. >> > we understand your direction, sir. >> > now, we haven't voted on that yet, it is the county judge's opining. >> > that is it. >> > may be other departments. >> > may be. >> > ok. >> > good morning, I'm tina morris, registrar. >> > as an example, in 2009, I knew I was going to face the retirement of a key position. >> > absolutely agree. >> > the department has additional documentation to support the requested grade? Ok. >> > on the list. >> > thank you. >> > thank y'all. >> > I think at this point, what I would like to do is to talk about a couple of funding issues related to the project. >> > all right. >> > I think travis and I can both speak to this. >> > page 38-1 we reached out to departments to look at any potential pending issues or things that may come up, one was reclassifications. >> > how many positions are those? >> > 17. >> > we have asked departments to fund reclasses internally? >> > no. >> > ok. >> > yes, sir. >> > the 17 positions? >> > yes, sir. >> > are they able to really make that determination or do you make that at the end of the fiscal year? >> > page 41 has the details. >> [one moment please for change in captioners] least maybe to see where we are. >> > the only thing I'd mention about that is there are a number of departments that have been funded. >> > funding, yeah. >> > okay. >> > the other item I want to address is temporary employees. >> [inaudible] employees, so if you have an office assistant in a department, they may be -- they may be a temp or they may be a regular employee. >> > sure. >> > and the other thing that I wanted to bring up was that although you'll hear susan talk about the implement plan, hopefully to get this done for April 1, we think on the temps it may be better to wait until may 1. >> > there could be a small impact -- >> > are we dealing with April 1, April 15 and may 1? >> [laughter] >> > judge, what's going to happen is the implementation plan which we drew up and starts on page 44 has very specific timelines and rules for us to be doing this. >> [inaudible] and that would cost more than we're paying for these pay raises. >> > the point is how much of that -- in other words >> [inaudible] the implementation schedule >> [inaudible] implementation schedule. >> > yes. >> > step 1 all the way to step 15. >> > this is christina adare, who is the project manager for >> [inaudible] and our chief in terms of systems and the one the program >> [inaudible] so I'd better tell you that. >> > although this should be the last. >> [laughter] >> > so let's talk about the regular employees first, the ones that we have the schedule for for April 1, and then if they slide, April 15. >> [inaudible] by a program, and the way we're proposing it, hr would go in and still create them in the system but they would have to initiate the creation of that paf and only hr can do that. >> [inaudible] to 5/1. >> > do we know how much it would cost to cover the temporary employees? >> > I did -- I did a quick calculation on it. >> > hrmd would be able to do the work for the temporaries? >> > yes. >> > all right. >> > sure. >> > that ought to facilitate implementation, right? >> > uh-huh.
my name is todd osborne.
to my right travis gatlin.
ppo.
and we have others from workman's comp and an adjuster.
I will highlight the changes in the two backups that we have.
I want to again, apologize for the lateness of the backup.
there were some items that simply weren't decided until Friday afternoon and no way to get it to you sooner.
changes from 3-6 to 3-16 backup.
the new backup has an executive summary in it.
the last time we didn't have that in the backup.
if you go to the executive summary, one thing that is very pronounced you will notice a change to the overall cost of the project.
it went from $7,450,000,895 to $68,472.
the difference is a change to three recommendations on titles.
the park supervisor won was recommended for pay grade 15.
we have recommended that now to pay grade 16.
park supervisor two, 16 to 17.
and the other job in juvenile probation, from 19 to 20.
that is something we were working with the departments over the span of last week.
we feel we are comfortable with the recommendations.
one other thing to be made to the table, in senior level management.
this is just a typo on the table.
the hhs division director is recommended to go from 26 to 27.
the March 6 backup positive been corrected in the March 13 backup.
other primary changes.
in the reclass table, two jobs were -- excuse me, two slots were taken out.
one at the request of the department and i.t.
and another one in j.p.
3 where they decided to do the reclass ahead of time, ahead of the project.
that was ok with us.
and four more added to the table, all of t.n.r.
three of those related to the creation of a new title, which is lead mechanic.
one of them, or a park maintenance worker which we reclassed to a senior.
that is it.
we originally had 85 in the table.
we now have 89 slots in the reclass table.
we did work with the departments over the week.
obviously, it has been an ongoing process.
I would like to be able to say every issue with every department is resolved.
I can't say that.
with a project of this size and scope, there be disagreement.
the arguments presented on some of these were more convincing than others.
we did work with the department, some cases, we do have disagreements.
a lot of the ones that we disagree on were really reclass issues.
most of the time, when we did not support the reclassification, it was simply because we didn't have a compelling reason to do it or some cases asking for jobs to go to a higher pay grade or we didn't have market for the higher pay grade.
what have we done when hrmd or affected department are not able to reach an agreement on a reclass? How have we resolved it?
yes, ma'am.
we met with them on last Thursday.
the changing of a pay grade would require changing to the table.
there are more changes that go with it.
conceivably, other departments can be affected.
as far as a reclassification goes, those are the ongoing thing that we can continue to work with the department, it is a fairly regular feature of the department.
and d.b.o.
we take a look at it again.
that should definitely be something we benchmark and look at again.
so every year we look at a handful of job, every 75 jobs.
we will look at the market data.
sometimes the market has dipped down.
we want to give a little time, look at the market data again, survey the market data again.
it is that we prefer to be guided by market where possible.
we have been doing this a long time.
the department I have in mind you met with just a few days ago.
and these issues may be resolvable, but they may not.
you see what I am saying? I don't know if postponing and attempt to resolve them in a year helps.
it would seem to me much better to try to resolve them immediately.
they didn't really come across as being real significant but for the affected tmployees, probably the biggest thing in the world.
if we can't resolve them, then just bring them to court, let us decide one way or the other.
that is what we were prepared to do today, but we can certainly bring it back.
because I think those that have been resolved we can move on those, I guess.
and then those that have not we normally -- I'm trying to figure what is in your mind as far as the timing of it to doing this process for those that have not really been resolved.
and you have seen the backup, if for a plethora of reasons they're not, they're effective April 15.
from an implementation viewpoint, purely.
mechanical implementation, I would prefer if they're not ready for April 1, they be ready for April 15.
that is just from an implementation.
hopefully in a conversation or two, we can decide whether or not we can resolve these issues.
if not, let the court preside.
this particular year, we have put quite a bit of time and effort into analyzing, reanalyzing, meeting with the departments.
we have agreed to disagree.
the market doesn't support it.
our internal equity reasons may not have been as sound or that is the way it has always been, internal equity perceptions are different.
todd is trying to convey we have worked with the departments quite a bit already.
I want to make sure within those steps and the process that is going to take place and adjustments and things of that nature where we will land and walk paycheck to the employees.
I want to make sign it is signed clad if it is possible, susan hit it on the head about April 15.
those that are not within that, it will have to come back to the court anyway to make a final recommendation to see if we can fit it in.
I hope that we are able to resolve all of it.
of course, that is what I am hoping for.
I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that.
so good luck.
but I think we can do it.
I'm really wanting to move forward as soon as possible on a lot of this.
since the money is there, we can go ahead and take care of it.
so ...
if you can't resolve them, the court ought to be notified immediately.
our goal ought to be to get this done by April 1.
if we cannot, we live with that, basically.
if we have to postpone it a year, you know, after exhausting all the other options, I can live with it.
I hate to start out thinking, hey, let's take a year.
we ought to be a bit more urgent than that.
I want to ask if you will consider one of the cases that we have that is still under discussion.
it is the chief deputy position for the county clerk.
the county clerk's office is a multifunction operation.
we're not court centric.
multifocus like the tax office.
the comparisons that we all agreed to many years ago, we think back in 2004 have somehow gotten reversed with ow new folks and I haven't been successful at getting it reversed back so we have the comparison between the tax office and the county clerk.
perhaps judge Biscoe and Commissioner Gomez will remember when we did that.
at any rate, it is hurting the chief deputy position that we lost the connection between the two similar offices.
I need for that one position to be back to the proper comparison.
our amendments should show that because we speak through our minutes.
I only found out about this yesterday.
I apologize.
I'm not prepared this morning.
I will do the research on minutes.
todd wasn't here then.
I just pound out about it.
add this to it.
you hadn't planned to take a vacation next week, had you, todd?
the rest are reclass issues.
I'm here on behalf of sherry fleming.
we have also had quite a few meetings with h.r.n.d.
as well.
some informal.
some more formal.
but we also received the final recommendation that the court review it on March 6.
I think the day of or the day before.
so there wasn't sufficient time for us to really take a look at that and see what the impact was.
what we discovered was 16 of the positions that were included in our recommendation were not recommended by h.r.m.d.
so we have kind of divided them among different types.
the majority of them are direct parody with peers.
in this case, the majority of those in question, about 10 of them, that have direct parody with peers within the immediate unit and within the division structure.
the dispute concern the level of the classifications assigned within their current job family.
seven of these positions concern the newest distinguishing characteristics between a social services program specialist and a social services program coordinator.
and just to be real brief about that.
if you looked at a social services program specialist, the job characteristics may say something like assist with coordinating an event activity or whatever.
the social services program coordinator position would actually say coordinate, implement those kinds of programs. What we have determined when you look at the p.a.q.s, individuals in the positions are the ones that actually write up their p.a.q.
so sometimes, the language that is used -- they're using language at their disposal how they describe their own jobs without benefit, in this case, of a desk audit that would actually sit with the employee and fine out exactly what kind of job it is that they're doing.
so I think that many of the same things that occurred in the past in doing market studies occurred, except this time it was a much more accelerated process.
and I think h.r.m.d.
did an excellent job if doing it.
there were certain steps that I think may have been left out that we were accustomed too, in the past, which is like the desk audit.
you have what appear to be small differences in a position can be very dramatic when it comes down to an employee and the job that they're doing.
another example would be of the delineation of the leadership role.
we have employees that are in positions that their p.a.q.s clearly demonstrate that they're working in higher levels of leadership and other capacities in their work.
this is also emphasized and communicated by our county executive to h.r.m.d.
she also communicated it in our response to h.r.m.d., which we set about five weeks ago.
there were positions that were classified in the wrong job family.
we have about two positions that we believe are just simply not classified correctly.
those two are not part of h.r.m.d.'s recommendation.
so all in all, we end up with what we believe to be 16 very critical positions that need to be addressed and hopefully that we can come to come agreement on and be able to move forward with that in mind.
I guess the final comment would be that -- from our fearless leader, ms. Fleming, that she really wanted to express to the court the fact that health and human services this year and in fiscal year 13, our focus really is going to be on infrastructure.
we have come to the court many times to receive assistance and added assistance for our direct services.
and we are grateful for that.
but we also have to invest in the people who perform that work.
we are human resources dependent.
and it is important to us that we take the opportunity to try to address some of these issues that we know for a fact have been going on for a number of years.
but what I am also hering is that somewhere along the line, the jobs job is saying the way they classify is in disarray or not in coord with h.r.m.d.
is suggesting.
so here they're asking for them to be included because of incorrection as far as classification of those jobs.
what I'm -- let me ask this question, is there any way -- I'm saying, being proactive, is there any possible way we could look at finding out how or why the department is saying one thing and hrmd is saying something else in these particular types of services.
what I think may end up happening, because on my end, there may be more of these, the disagreement between the departments and also hrmd, as well as what the jobs are and how they should be classified.
that is what I am hearing.
I'm trying to figure out how we can minimize the impact.
we rely on the p.a.q.s that are filled out with they come in.
if they're in a particular job title and the duties they write down support that job title, then we will go ahead an get market data on the job title.
it is reviewed by the supervisor, if the supervisor disagrees or thinks it is different from what the employee is describing.
at the onset of this, we ask for a memo from the department highlighting any issues they may have with reclasses or jobs that perhaps they have a lot of turnover in and want us to maybe look at compensation as an issue with that.
within these particular jobs, debra is completely correct, we did not get this information at the onset, we got it five weeks ago.
I think there were 23 positions we were asked to look at for reclassify weeks ago.
well, in that short a time span and project of this size we didn't have the resources to go out and do desk audits at that time.
it is not that they're inappropriate we don't have the resources at this time.
do I believe and I expressed to sherry last week, that we will certainly be happy to continue this process and we can certainly go out, look at the reclasses.
they were brought to our attention not at the onset of the project last year, but five weeks ago.
this is a reclass issue -- it is not -- debra doesn't appear to be saying we don't think the mark market is right, we think the jobs are different.
we did rely on the information we were given at the beginning which is the p.a.q.
supervisor's comments and any memo from the department.
this is very late.
at that point, we ask, yeah, this is something reclasses that we need to look at.
we're happy to do that.
do we want to hold up the project? For everybody else that we know are out of market right now? That is for the court to decide.
I know we're on a tight time schedule with regards to implementation on April 1.
I think we have time to go study all of these without necessarily holding up the project.
we want them paid for what they do.
they're saying one thing, if the time line is a factor in some of these, in my mind, that is an issue.
saying all of there, I guess I'm to the point where -- I don't know what the short list is now, I continue is growing.
there may be others here that may also have something to say as pharr as the process is concerned and feel they may have been left out.
we wanted guidance from the court on how we address the issues that we have outstanding.
I should still reiterate, to my knowledge, all of the issues that we had on the table we addressed throughout this process.
the actual report itself may have been received five weeks ago.
we have been in communication and discussing this for some time.
I think that there was a clear understanding of what the department's interest was.
right now, where we're at is we don't want to hold up the process for others but we also want a clear direction from the court on how we can move forward with the directing of issues in h.h.s.
without it being delayed another six months or year.
something that is at least in keeping with the other implementation.
some of the issues we have known about for a while, we just didn't have the same viewpoint as the department.
some of the issues were new that in were in the January 24 letter.
basically by January 24, we had given the results out, the preliminary results out.
department came back with a think 23 specific requests for reclassification.
some of them didn't surprise us.
a number of them we didn't expect.
we did recommend some be approved.
some we didn't necessarily agree with based off the information we had.
I think diane is quite correct in saying when we get a large number like this right at the tail end of the practical, it is the possibility of doing the desk audits and everything required for us to make the final authorizations.
if we have a problem working with them on this in the future.
all of their issues are on my list.
their pressen here is not a surprise to me today.
we will continue to work with them.
two weeks is a long time.
sometimes it is good to have a deadline so we know what we need to do.
what we are not able to resolve, we present to the court or plan on the facts one way or the other.
I'm thinking that there won't be, you know, one mind up overnight.
there may still be areas of disagreement.
if you can it will us what they are and point the facts.
I guess whatever standard we should apply, the court will try to land on.
I mean, I guess I feel the need to try to get as much done as possible by the 27th of March.
ms. Britain is that it?
we appreciate your support.
I'm here with another from the tax property division.
we're here to express our concerns about the market salary.
specifically about four job classifications that we discussed with todd and diane.
those jobs, exactly, are business analysts, volunteer coordinator and tax supervisor.
second, we want the court to know we're looking forward to working very hard with h.r., p.b.o.
to examine the tax office positions with the ultimate goal of ensuring accuracy.
at the beginning of March when h.r.
asked for feedback to the market salary study, we provided that information but we didn't know the feedback was going to be an appeal.
we didn't know that until recently.
we received a response to our appeal late yesterday.
we did have a chance to sit and talk by phone with todd and diane.
as a result of the discussion, we understand as a group wee our managers there are, we understand this data was collected a year ago.
the new information what we were bringing to the table simply did not apply.
so there is really not anything that we're asking the court to do regarding the tax office today and the market salary survey.
please keep in mind, when you have change of leadership in our office, there are strings untied.
this is a big one.
I would like to focus on the tax office supervisor.
there are unique considerations when you talk about the tax office.
probably no other place like represents Travis County or ole -- all of local government.
we serve 1100 bodies in the door every day.
serve thousands more online, by phone and by mail.
to collect $2.4 billion in property taxes, fines, fees, title fees, registrations and to register voters, maintain records for 5,092 citizens we have to, autotax office we -- in the tax office, we to have a high degree of professionalism.
to continue disbursing that and serve Travis County voters as we have done so in the past, we don't just need professionals, we need the very best professionals doing the jobs as supervisors.
our positions, have not been highly competitive in the past.
we have great benefits.
we know that in Travis County.
our salaries are not competitive with the private sector.
I will ask renee decker to destroy that to you.
therefore, I worked with planning and budget to create a slot so I could hire a person a few months prior to this key position leaving.
during that time frame I was informed by h.r.
that I had to hire a person with an accounting degree.
that sounds very fitting, we collect taxes, collect a lot of revenue.
a person with an accounting degree does sound fitting.
so I searched out, I reviewed applications to seek out to hire a person with an accounting degree that also had supervisory experience.
my colleague stan wilson was also about to have to do the same thing because we had several of our key players about to retire.
he sat in with me on the interviews.
again, you think the task associated with collecting tacks, accounting sounds -- taxes accounting sounds good.
we load money into the system and $50 billion of exemptions and collect $2.3 billion in levy.
expected to collect that professionally, courteously and correctly and get that distributed all to all the 107 taxing entities besides Travis County correctly.
so we seek -- we went out to do that.
in 33 years of experience with Travis County, I knew this was going to be a major task because while I work with accountants, I have worked with several accountants, I knew that they're numbers people.
there is nothing wrong with that.
we need numbers people.
we had to have that.
but when you are dealing with collecting property taxes from the person that just lost their spouse or someone who has been diagnosed with cancer or you're working with the person who just walked in the doors because they're so excited, they bought their first vehicle and then to find out that their paperwork is all wrong and that owner of that car that they purchased is no longer in town.
we have to deal with the human side.
not only do we have to crunch the numbers, we deal with the human side.
I went on, we interviewed about 30 people.
30 applicants.
I was able to finally find one applicant that I thought could deal with both the numbers and the human side of that job tax of tax supervisor.
we hired that person.
I started them on a fast track to get their license as a registered tax assessor.
in about 14 months, that person quickly found another job that paid double the salary that we were paying and as she told me, and I don't have to deal with the human aspect.
I'm going to go to a back room, I'm going to help businesses crunch their numbers.
I'm going to help this business get on track and I'm going to just deal with other accountants and other people working books I'm not going to have to deal with the human side.
this tax supervisor position is a very key position to all of us in Travis County.
all of us.
yes, they crunch numbers.
but they deal with a huge human aspect, it is a hard position to hire -- to fill.
coming up, I know I have another one of my key employees that is about to retire.
shortly, probably a year after that one, another one.
we can't play around with these positions.
they're key to not just the tax office, but key to 107 taxing entities.
key to the state of Texas for collecting motor vehicle fees.
it is a very key position.
yes, it is money, but it is also dealing with the unique citizens of Travis County.
thank you.
it is a critical position.
we are recommending that they go from pay grade 18 to pay grade 19.
the department has requested pay grade 22.
we don't have at this moment market support for that.
however in the end if the court wants us to work with the department, we will.
I say have a meeting, share that information.
try to evaluate it.
see if you can reach an agreement.
add it to the list of coming back to the court on the 27th.
anybody else? Ok ok.
we had some discussion of it last week, I don't think it was resolved.
so I do want to talk about the funding mechanism for reclassifications, I also want to touch on how we're going to handle our temporary employees as well.
I think as far as the reclassifications go, megan, would you like to speak to this?
as part of our recommendation, we did recommend that reclasses be refunded internally within the department.
just as we refund reclasses in the other year.
travis has more detail, departments have gotten with him as far as refunding the reclassifications, I will turn that over to travis.
on page 30, beginning on page -- I think it is probably page 36, but we talked about reclassification.
page 38 it is a summary table that shows 89 reclassifications.
those are the ones that are currently being recommended by h.r.
there may be pending ones.
19 are cost neutral.
no cost involved, other than what is included in the market salary survey.
36 where there is cost involved.
the departments have committed to internally fund those.
that is $175,666.
and there is 17 other reclassifications costing $112,684 where the department saying they can't internally fund those and they intend to request funding directly from the court now or part of the f.y.
'13 budget process.
we suggest that we address it as part of the f.y.
'13 budget process.
so if we added those total, departments can fund 73% of the positions and 61% of the cost.
and that leaves 27% of the positions left or 39% of the cost.
so departments are able to cover more than half of those costs, already.
or commit to that.
also a number of reclassifications happening probably up until now that departments have internally funded in preparation of the mark salary survey.
as a part outside of the market salary survey autolast time the market salary survey came to court, the court did refund the reclassification.
the departments indicated they did not think they could cover the funding for reclasses?
the department title, department names, numbers of positions.
they said they can't do it now.
if you direct us to continue to work with them and direct the departments make that a high priority, I think we can possibly reduce that number.
I don't know if we can -- for some departments.
there are small departments, may not be able to cover that cost.
maybe we can do something about it then --
these are committed to internally funded.
if you decide to fund those other 112,000, I think -- at least some of those departments would want funding as well.
as you know, we have a number of temporary employees in Travis County who share titles with
either way they still are within the same pay grade and if the pay grade moves for a regular employee, say it goes from pay grade 8 to 10, the temps were not included in the costing of this project, and we didn't view them from a classification standpoint because they were not regular employees.
but we still have to deal with the fact that if the title moves from a pay grade 8 to pay grade 8, let's say, that if the employee is being paid at minimum, they would need some additional funding in order to get that employee to the pay grade minimum.
what we're recommending is that the court direct departments to bring anybody who would be below minimum as a result of the changed pay grade as a result of this project, to at least bring them to minimum and work with pbo to figure out how to pay for that, and I'm going to turn it over to travis to speak to that a little bit more.
and so what we're saying is, you know, if you don't make these timelines, then it flips over to the 15th so that we've got timelines locked in.
if you want to do some things that are manual outside that, you can do that, but this process here -- and if you look at page 44, you can see what has to be done, who's going to do it.
we met with pbo and hormoneshrmy could do that.
this requires 16 hours of programming by my programmer as opposed to the way we normally do it is a week and a half to two weeks of solid programming, which you know we can't do unless we suspend
it's not practical.
so we need to very -- I neen, we need -- we need to follow this if we're going to get this done, but if you want to say -- you want to handle other things outside that implementation, manually done, you can do that.
we look at that and at the end of the day, of course at the end of it, we want to see that the employees get a paycheck in I'm.
what I'm trying to determine is that if this particular implementation -- implementation schedule is supported by the court, my question then is how long would it take, or what would it take -- the question is what would it take to do those things that we haven't resolved and are still left unresolved at this point if we have to do it manually.
in other words, it's really not a lot of that opposed to looking at this, not having to do this manually.
so my question is what would it take to do those things that are left out to this point to make sure it's manually done and it can run parallel with this process.
so that's my question.
when we say manually, so for the ones you're still working on resolving, it just means that they're not going to be automatically
so it's basically hr who's going to have the workload of creating those pafs manually, but they're not manual paper manual.
they're still being created in the system, right, they're not going to be created automatically by program.
so that's what they mean by manual.
for the temporaries, when we met on Friday, the reason we decided that it might be wiser to wait until 5/1 is that the department needed to be approached by pbo as far as whether they had funding in their temporary salary line -- I mean, temporary line items to actually pay for those hourly rate increases and that that would be hard to maybe get through for 4/1 implementation.
so it was more the funding piece that was the driving factor behind delaying the temp
and those were always planned to be done at the department's discretion.
at least that's how we talked on Friday, and travis can chime in here.
so that the department would initiate, like they did today -- whenever they want to do a personnel action, somebody has a contrary ladder, they go into the system and they create a personnel action that moves that person to whatever hourly rate, that's at least minimum, right, but it would be at the department's discretion to create those personnel actions.
so that's what we mean by manual.
it's not paper.
they're still doing it in the system like the personnel actions but they would do it at their own time and as funding allows.
so what that would leave is that some of these positions would then be looking like they're below minimum until that happens.
so that's the hr concern with this, right, and pbo representing the funding concern.
if we increase the temporary employees' budgets by 3 1/2%, which is a rough number, and it's 166,000.
I think the number will be far lower than that.
keep in mind that some temporary positions won't change pay grades and some are.
where we can look at the regular salary slots and those tie to a certain number of hours.
that doesn't work with temporary employees.
the biggest issues we've identified is in cds, they have a large budget relative to the size, it's $30,000 on ongoing basis.
they believe they can do it -- we can work with them.
there's no outstanding issues with temporary employees that should cause you delay in project, so we're working out the issue as we sp.
so there are no issues.
if the department cannot fund temporary increases internally, then we just have an earmark on reserve to back it up.