Travis County Commissioners Court

July 10, 2012 - Item 15
Agenda

15, consider and take appropriate action regarding the compensation for associate and magistrate judges as follows: item 15 backup (pdf) a, a new compensation methodology for associate and magistrate judges; and b, increase the base compensation rate for associate and magistrate judges to $112,000 or less and set effective date.
Good afternoon.

>> Hello.

>> Hello.

>> Good morning, judge.

>> Good afternoon.

>> Good afternoon.

>> Afternoon,

>> [laughter]

>> And good afternoon, Commissioners.
Todd so born, compensation manager, hrmd, this is actually a holdover item that we actually presented this back on the -- I think June 26th.
And you had some questions on them, particularly you did I think judge, while we did provide the answers in the backup for this item, perhaps we should go through those in case someone hasn't had time to go through those yet.
Your first question was how many of our employees during the market salary survey got an increase of $7,000 or more.
The answer to that is they were exactly 15.
The majority of those on the higher end of the pay scale, a few of those were actually employees who had significant reclassifications.
You asked us how many employees received an increase of 7% or more during the mss, that was actually 513 of our employees or about 14% of the workforce.
Since about a quarter of the workforce receives zero and about 14% got -- got 7% or more, the average turned out to be about 3.5%, the rest of the people received somewhere in between.
You asked us to acquire some additional information for associate judges in el paso, county.
I'm kind of glad you did, because that was a -- that was a -- a good barometer kind of because we had four

>> [indiscernible] in the sample, two of them considerably higher, two of them were right about where we were in terms of the marketplace.
In el paso they do things differently.
The other peers in Travis County all have a single fixed rate for the associate judges whereas el paso puts them on a scale and gives them different salaries based upon how long they have been with the county or how long they have served as an associate judge.
So their salary range really went anywhere from I think around 95,000 to about 140, but the average salary in el paso county was about 120,000.
And that would put it about 15,000 of where we are today.

>> The one making 140,000 had been there how long?

>> I don't know specifically but I assume they've been there the longest.

>> Do you have any questions of us?
Of course I'm here on behalf of the criminal judges, judge livingston is here on behalf of the civil judges to support this rate for a magistrate.
2006, and -- and we believe it's justified and they do work hard and they work -- you know, help us and the implementation of both of our systems to get the cases resolved.

>> One last question.

>> I'm sorry.

>> Actually there was one last question that you did ask us about the linkage of associate judge's pay.
Actually, we didn't find their pay was linked directly in bexar county, el paso or harris.
Dallas county operates much like we do today where they have the exact pay for associate judges as they do for jp's.
If tarrant county while there is no direct linkage, this he they do have a cap.
Associate judges cannot make more than 09%, which universally is about 140,000 across the state.
9 o 0%.

>> Court members, questions?
So these two recommendations, which one is more important?
The 85% link or the 12 -- or the $7,000 pay increase?

>> Well the proposal would be to uncouple them from the district judges, but have a cap, so it's really sort of an apples --

>> I thought it was to couple at 85%.

>> No.
There would be no link to the district judges.
It's a cap.
Essentially we would pay them at a market rate but that could not exceed 85% of whatever it was the district judges were being paid.

>> So if you do that, you would use the el paso approach and base the compensation on I guess seniority to some extent.

>> No.

>> Experience?

>> No, no.

>> We would still have a fixed rate for everyone serving in that position.

>> They would all make the same amount of money.
None of them could make more than 85%, so the 85% would simply be a cap, but up to 85% the market would determine whether it's 80, 81, 82, whatever, but no greater than 85%.
So they wouldn't be stuck.
Because right now with their -- when they are coupled with us, if we don't get an increase, they don't get an increase.
Under this proposal, they could as long as they don't make more than 85% of what we make.
So it's better for them because they get the benefit of a market adjustment, whether we do or not.
But no more than 85% of what we make.
So this is a much better proposal for them, we think, by uncoupling them, but instituting a cap of 85%.
Separate and apart from the increase.
As it relates to your increase about the increase, though, I did want to point out we were curious about, one of the arguments we made before, I want to remind everybody about today, is that while they were coupled and one of the reasons we want to uncouple them was because other county employees were continuing to get increases over the years while they were not because they were coupled with us.
This way they get the benefit of the market approach and with the cap they can't exceed the 85%, but it provides an incentive for them to stay.
It provides our ability to reward them for longevity and -- in retention and I would point out that in the last, since 2007, other county employees have received a total of 13% increases in their salaries while the associate judges, since that same period of time have received zero.
So we think there's a compelling argument for both of these proposals that are really unrelated.
The increase in salary and uncoupling with the cap or sort of really -- they are sort of really two distinct things.

>> Well, we gave a whole lot more employees 7% than I knew.
We kind of -- I guess that happens when you build on

>> [indiscernible] at one time.
Is there a motion?

>> I have a question.

>> Is there a question?
Commissioner Eckhardt?

>> Do we have any problems recruiting or retaining magistrate or associate judges?

>> We have it depends, sue shepherd, who you all remember was here retired in December of last year, had been here for more than 20 years, deborah richardson less so.
It just kind of depends on what's going on.
The good news is that it's great work.
It's wonderful work.
We've been able to hire very qualified people and so we don't have any problem finding good people to fill the position, but I think that's more about Travis County and the work that we do and the people in the family law bar in particular who are committed to the work, I think it says more about that than anything else.
But, you know, nobody is going to stay forever.
The average tenure of an elected judge is only eight years, that is attributed in part, in large measure to the fact that the district judge's salary is so low compared to our colleagues out in private practice.
And so as the district judges begin to leave because they can't put their kids through college, the same challenges are going to face associate judges who have kids that they want to put through college.
So do we have trouble finding great people to be judges, no, we don't.
We find good people to be judges because people have a public service mind about them here in Travis County.
And the work is exciting and good and wonderful and they care about the people that live in this community.
But should we punish them sort of on the other hand for that?
I don't think.
So it's sort of a tradeoff.
A policy question that we have to answer, but I would vote in favor of rewarding them for the work that they do, we hope that you'll see it that way.

>> Commissioner Huber?

>> I have a motion.
I would like to take these separately, I would like to move on a that we adopt a new compensation methodology disassociating magistrate and associate judges from the district judge:

>> Seconded by Commissioner Gomez.
That is 15 a.
Right?

>> Right.

>> Discussion on the month month -- discussion on the motion?
All in favor?
That passes by unanimous vote.
I move approval of 15 b.

>> Second.

>> That we give the requested -- recommended $7,000 pay increase to increase salaries to $112,000 and the reason I do that is because of the number of people who received a 7% pay increase and also the number that received an increase of -- of $7,000 or more.

>> And when you -- when you vote on this, we would like to recommend an effective date of August the 1st.

>> That's part of b.

>> Okay.

>> [indiscernible] can do that.

>> It's only eight people, we can do them manually.

>> All right.
If this passes, it will be effective August 1, 2012.
Discussion on the motion?
All in favor?
Show unanimous court voting in favor, thank you all very much.

>> Thank you very much.
On behalf of all of our associate judges, I know they would want me to thank you as well.

>> Absolutely, thank you.

>> Thanks for all their hard work.

>> Thank you.

>> It's a great stable of associate judges.

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