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KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS COURT
Budget Workshop
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
9:00 a.m.
Commissioners' Courtroom
Kerr County Courthouse
Kerrville, Texas
PRESENT: PAT TINLEY, Kerr County Judge
H.A."BUSTER" BALDWIN, Commissioner Pct. 1
WILLIAM "BILL" WILLIAMS, Commissioner Pct. 2
JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Pct. 3
BRUCE OEHLER, Commissioner Pct. 4
91,
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I N D E X
July 16, 2008
PAGE
Participate in Budget Workshops for the following
departments:
Employee Health Benefits 3
Human Resources/Personnel Policies/Reorganization
issues 21
City/County Joint Operations 101
Adjourned 110
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On Wednesday, July 16, 2008, at 9:00 a.m., a budget
workshop of the Kerr County Commissioners Court was held in
the Commissioners' Courtroom, Kerr County Courthouse,
Kerrville, Texas, and the following proceedings were had in
open court:
P R O C E E D I N G S
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Let's come to order, if we
might, for our Commissioners Court workshop scheduled for
this date and time, Wednesday, July 16th, 2008, at 9 a.m. It
is a bit past that time now. The workshop agenda this
morning calls for participation in budget workshops for
departments as follows: City/County joint operations,
employee health benefits, reorganization issues, human
resources, and personnel policies. I'd like to start off
with the employee health benefits. I see Mr. Looney is here,
and let him go ahead and tell us what's on his mind. Do we
need the podium set up over here? Probably would be a good
idea. I'm not sure we're going to need the mic set up.
(Discussion off the record.)
MR. LOONEY: Morning, Judge, Commissioners.
JUDGE TINLEY: Good morning.
MR. LOONEY: I'll try to make the comments
relatively short this morning, because, you know, as we know,
we changed administrators last year. We've got -- moving
forward right now, we've got about five solid months of -- of
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claim information on the new administrator, so we're trying
to work on getting an additional month of July, and we'd like
to have another full month of August before we come back
with -- with more solid projection numbers for you. But
right now, we're looking at about an 8 percent increase in
our cost for next year. And that's just trying to take all
that information we've had for the last two and a half years,
and we're blending in information that we've gotten that
we've received from -- from our new administrator at this
A lot of that, unfortunately, is not directly
attributable to your experience as a -- as a county, but some
of it's attributable to what we're projecting as far as trend
as a result of -- history shows that during an election year,
trends are down; that a lot of medical trend factors do not
increase during an election year, and then arbitrarily change
after an election year. It's just historical. There's -- or
hysterical, whichever. So, some of this trend factor that
we're building in in this 8 percent has to do with just
historical trend that occurs from one election period -- from
one change in a presidential period to another. And so
that's what we're -- you know, it's not just Kerr County;
this is nationwide that we see. And it's less, actually, in
this county than we're seeing in other cities and counties
around the state of Texas. So, we've got that we have to
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I don't know if you've been watching the Medicare
two bills pass, one in the House of Representatives and the
Senate, having to change and re -- and the initial bills were
reducing payments to physicians by up to 13 percent. That
bill did not pass. So, they have extended the payments to
Medicare physicians so that they are not taking that -- that
reduction. Subsequently, we have other cost factors that
you is what we do moving forward with the retirees from the
county. Right now, y'all, as a county, have a substantial
benefit that you build in for your retiree population,
whether they're under age 65 or over age 65, so we're looking
very closely at that. Cost and exposure for your employees
that are in that retiree group that then become eligible for
Medicare. Right now, we're not taking advantage of the
Medicare options that are available for Medicare being
primary, and so we want to look very hard at your retiree
population that moves into the age of 65 Medicare
eligibility, of making Medicare as their primary carrier
versus the County as being the primary carrier.
In addition to that, we have to look very closely
at the reasons for employees wanting to be under the Medicare
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program or not. Primarily, it's the fact of a prescription
-- the best prescription reimbursement plan that's out there.
So, we will be coming back to you with a recommendation as to
how to move and change that while trying to protect the
interest on the prescription drug side of it, by getting as
much of the coordination of the benefits from Medicare to
benefit us as a county. The people that -- Medicare is not a
bad -- Medicare medical plan is not a bad plan, but we want
to make sure that, moving forward, that we get as much of
that expense to offset our cost as we can. The other thing
we want to look at is, you know, our charges that we make for
our retirees. We really haven't impacted that cost for
employees in the retiree base much in the past, and we're
really kind of backwards, you know, what our charges are for
those individuals. We'll take a better look at what those
costs are. We probably are going to recommend an increase of
premium for those retiree -- for that retiree group.
The other item that we are going to give you some
pricing on and give you some evaluation of is the leave of
absence policy, based on short-term leave of absences,
personal time off in relationship to the insurance industry's
response to that, which is a short-term disability product.
We want to look at the pricing, your cost for that time off
versus what the pricing would be to insure that product, so
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we'll be able to give you an indication of whether it's
giving you some information on that pretty -- pretty quickly,
too. That's pretty much what I've got right now. We're
still trying to gather a lot of information. We've got a
projection for a health fair coming up. We're not sure what
the date is going to be, but we're going to work with the
providers, the current vendors, of having health care
presented for all the county employees. That's my story.
to try and achieve some sort of cost containment?
MR. LOONEY: We've got -- we've got a -- we're
trying to get information from the Mutual of Omaha group, the
ex group, which is -- has to do with specific formulary that
was in use, which formulary is the listing of medications
that has the co-payments and the other negotiated pricing
associated with it. We're pulling that in from Express
Scripts, making some comparisons, because we went from --
from one area of formulary to another area of formulary, and
we've got some disparities in there that we want to try to
clean up. The formulary for Express Scripts, for instance,
we've got some requirements for specialty medications in
there that we need to make sure that all employees are very
well aware of as far as being able to negotiate for those
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specialty medications. We want to make sure they're going
through the Express Scripts program. It can mean as much as
50, 60, 70 percent savings in those medications alone, which
are the high-priced medications.
Looking at changing the formulary to some degree to
look at the therapeutic process, and generic medications
being able to be used to replace those medications that can
be replaced based on the therapeutic base, as opposed to just
the generic versus branded medications. So, yes, sir, we're
looking at making some changes in that area. But, again,
you'll -- you will have a full presentation on those changes.
The most highly -- there's two very highly utilized
medications. One is Nexium; the other one is Lipitor, and
we're taking a good, hard look at what the volume of those
medications are. You don't have as many of the utilization
-- have as much utilization in the hypertension area as I
thought you would have. Not concerned about that as much,
but -- but what they call GERD, which is the esophageal
reflux medications, which my dad used to handle with Alka
Seltzer, is now handled by a fairly high-cost medication.
So, we're going to take a look at how that works, and just --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does our population in the
county have a lot more of that type of use than general?
MR. LOONEY: You're above average. As far -- and
you're above average in utilization of medications in
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general,	as far	as percentage	of the	total	cost of the	plan.
The last	time I	-- last number	that	I felt	comfortable	with
was, you were about 20 percent -- 19 to 20 percent of the
total cost of the medication in the plan, which is a little
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Is that comparing -- does that
take into account the age of our population?
MR. LOONEY: It's strictly utilization. We haven't
really applied against any -- any age circumstances yet. But
average medications, you typically have about one
prescription drug per month, per employee. You all are
running about two and a quarter per month, per employee.
That doesn't mean that every employee is taking medications.
It just means that some of you -- some of the population are
taking as many as four or five and six medications a month.
And that's it. The other thing that we're really watching
carefully is the contraindications of taking multiple
medications from multiple physicians, and acquiring those
medications from multiple pharmacists. So, we're -- we're
tracking to be sure that we don't have contraindicated drugs
being utilized by employees.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Gary, a 7 percent increase
coming up; just off the top of your head, could you tell
me --
MR. LOONEY: You just took one point off my
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increase. 8 percent.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 8 percent? It's getting
worse. I knew that. I was just checking to see if you knew.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Good try, Buster.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. The -- can you just,
off the top of your head, tell me what it was the last two or
three years? Has it been about that same number?
MR. LOONEY: No. Actually, we've been in the 2,
3 percent range for -- for the last four years. I think the
highest increase we had was about 3 and a half percent.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay. Which we screamed
about at that time.
MR. LOONEY: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And now we're talking 8.
MR. LOONEY: Projected at this point in time, based
on limited information.
JUDGE TINLEY: What's the national average figures
on annual percentage in health plan costs?
MR. LOONEY: They're -- they're back into the
double-digit numbers. They're back in the 11, 12 percent
range.
JUDGE TINLEY: As they have been for a number of
years?
MR. LOONEY: Right.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, what we've done has been
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significantly below the national average for a number of
years.
MR. LOONEY: Being able to average less than a
4 percent increase over the last 4 years is significantly
better than what you see in the economy.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Mr. Looney?
Ms. Hyde, what do you have to feed into the health benefits?
MR. LOONEY: Thank you.
MS. HYDE: Mr. Looney and I talked, so what he was
saying is exactly what I'm saying. I mean, we do have folks
that we need to look at. We need to look at our retiree plan
going forward. We're not talking about cutting it out or --
you know, everyone will have it. We're just saying that
there's some things that we can do to shore it up a little
bit to help decrease some costs of it to us, which is when
you hit 65 and you go to Medicare, Medicare becomes primary
and we become secondary. And it doesn't sound like much, but
that can save us quite a bit of funds. Most retirees are
using it for our prescriptions, which is great. That's fine,
but we've talked about it. You know, we don't know what
Medicare is going to do. We don't know what these Part D's
are going to do. There's multiples that you can buy;
U.S.A.A., A.A.R.P., the whole gamut. It's become a new
business on prescription drugs for the elderly. So, until
the government -- until we have our election, we're really
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1 not going to know, I don't believe. I don't think -- I
2 think, Gary, you said the same thing. So, you know that
3 there will be a small increase for the retirees for their
4 premium.
5 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we getting better -- I
6 should probably ask Gary -- better usage from our health
7 savings accounts, or the health deal? For a while, we
8 weren't getting -- a lot of employees weren't using them
9 properly, or using --
10 MS. HYDE: Oh, they're using them, absolutely.
11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're being used?
12 MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
13 MR. LOONEY: Very much so.
14 MS. HYDE: Absolutely. We have a lot of folks that
15 have already banged out -- excuse me, bottomed out.
16 MR. LOONEY: Very well appreciated by the
17 employees.
18 MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm. And they understand it better.
19 They understand that, you know, they're taking a risk if they
20 use it for co-pays versus a deductible. They actually
21 understand those two words now. And I think that, you know,
22 just keeping working with them, the next stage is making sure
23 that they understand that you only have 90 days into the new
24 year, so if you're going to try to use it for something the
25 prior year, you only have till March 15th, 'cause we have to
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have it in by the 31st and it's done. Which has hurt some
folks, but it's education.
JUDGE TINLEY: But you can accumulate up to three
years of your HRA benefit and carry it forward.
MS. HYDE: You must have been reading my mind,
'cause that's my next bullet point. Somehow, our HRA account
has changed. I did a lot of background work on what y'all
had approved originally, and originally the HRA was approved
so that employee -- just on a single employee, we would get
$600 towards their HRA. If it was an employee and a spouse,
again, it's $600 plus $600 is $1,200. And if it was an
employee, spouse, one child, multiple children, that's
another $600, which is $1,800 per person.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That was originally?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I cannot find anywhere where
it was approved to modify that to employee gets $600; if
you're married, you get $1,800.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MS. HYDE: So, I am requesting that y'all ponder
that one, and that we go back to the original $600, $600,
$600. Because right now, it seems like, you know, you're
being penalized if you're single.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're single.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely. So if you know anybody
that's -- no.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Golly.
MR. LOONEY: That's worth $600.
MS. HYDE: $600.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What else do you have for us?
MR. RUARK: You're blushing, Eva.
MS. HYDE: That one came out real bad. But I've --
as far as insurance goes, the other thing that Gary and I
have talked a lot about during the last year, the folks in
this building have been great about working on the policy
book. Y'all know that's been a work in progress, and we've
had some glitches and some things that have kind of Banked
it, but everyone has been working hard on it. One of the
discussions that I'd like for y'all to ponder is, we
currently have sick pay, and that sick pay is given to
employees at 8 hours per month, which means they get 12 days
off per year for sick time, and that sick time can
accumulate. There is -- there is no maximum. They can earn
as much -- we just don't pay them for sick time when they
~ leave Kerr County, when they leave employment. One thing --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: So, they -- they don't --
there's not a payout if they leave, but they can accumulate
it as long as they're employed?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. And they can also -- before
they leave, they can also use a lot of it, because they have
it and they can use it.
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2F
JUDGE TINLEY:	And	sometimes	do.
COMMISSIONER	LETZ:	They can	use it and then
resign.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, I'd like
for y'all to ponder another ponder point, that we absorb
short-term disability for the employees and reduce sick time
to zero and change it to be called personal time. And they
can earn five days a year. That's their personal time; they
can do whatever they want to. They don't have to be sick.
It can be for their birthday, their anniversary, whatever,
but we absorb the short-term disability for them so that that
would pay them when they're sick, short term. It decreases
our liability; it decreases our costs. We'll give you more
information as we go on it. When we got the last quotes, it
was around $10,000, $11,000 a year for the County to take
over short-term disability.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Explain short-term, how -- I
mean, short-term disability.
MS. HYDE: Short-term disability typically is if an
employee is out one day, no, they're not going to get paid.
If they're out more than one day, they do get paid. You can
do it just like other things; you can say if they go out one
day, as long as they have a doctor's excuse or they have
something, short-term disability will pay. You can do it on
a two-day; you can do on it a three-day. You can do it up to
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a week.
MR. LOONEY: Seven days.
MS. HYDE: Now, we figured it on zero days, so
if -- the first day they're out, just like now, if they have
sick time, first day they're out, they're paid. We figured
short-term on the same thing. First day out, they would get
paid. If they go out more than three days -- if they're out
more than three days, they have to have a doctor's excuse,
which is no different than what they're supposed to be doing
right now. I think the fear on a lot of folks' part is that
if I've got thousands of hours, 'cause we do have some folks
that have thousands of hours of sick time, okay, what happens
if I get real sick? If we purchase the short-term disability
for employees, then it becomes their responsibility to look
at long-term, if there's a catastrophic illness or if there's
a long-term disability. That long-term disability is not
that expensive.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Now, how long is -- I mean, is
short-term?
MS. HYDE: Up to six months.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Up to six months?
MS . HYDE : Mm-hmm.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Have you determined
system-wide abuses in the use of sick pay? We don't have all
morning for you to tell us, but yes or no.
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MS. HYDE: Um --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I guess that's a yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I read it as a no.
JUDGE TINLEY: I read it as a, there appears to be
some indication there might be some.
MS. HYDE: There is some abuses. There are some
abuses, but there's some abuses in the vacation and comp
time. And a lot of it, I think, has to do with people not
understanding it. How'd I do?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Surely no one would
purposely abuse --
MS. HYDE: Absolutely not. I don't believe any of
our employees are -- or anyone would purposely abuse it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Without prior approval.
(Laughter.)
MS. HYDE: So --
MR. LOONEY: Check the number of sick days prior to
long vacations like the 4th of July.
~ COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Go on, Eva.
~ MS. HYDE: As far as insurance, that's really all.
1 Gary and I have been working on it. I would like to get an
2 opportunity, 'cause there's so many folks in here -- I know
3 that folks have had problems this year, and FARA has gotten a
4 black eye. A lot of people have blamed FARA for our
5 problems. FAR.A's not our problem. Our transition time last
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year where our prior provider left the state of Texas has
been the issue. We started out in December with the claims.
People started getting EOB's in January and February saying,
"You're no longer an employee; you're not covered." You
know, everybody gets upset. Well, you're talking 60 days
into the new year before we even start getting the EOB's.
FARA then is trying to take over. They didn't get good
information. They didn't get claims paid information until
about three weeks ago from the prior provider. And what that
does is, it's like a little library book that tells you we
have -- we paid "X" amount of dollars for Eva Hyde's
medication last year. We paid "X" amount to Sid Pete or Hill
Country Hospital or whoever for this procedure. So, when --
when people bring in bills from the hospitals or from
doctors, we have to look at the EOB, and if it already shows
that the prior provider paid, of course, FARA's not going to
repay it. The problem was, there was nothing telling us what
they had paid or not paid, so FARA was sitting there not
knowing. So, if we had approved it, sure, they could have
paid all those bills, but what about the ones that had
already been paid? Now we're duplicating payments. So that,
in a nutshell, is what has been going on the last six months.
Our last pile was 65 pages of EOB's that were in the first
and second quarter of 2007. That's January through June.
JUDGE TINLEY: I appreciate that explanation,
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because that boils it down in a nutshell as to where we are.
And that first 50,000 is our money.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
JUDGE TINLEY: So that puts it pretty well in
perspective. I appreciate that.
MS. HYDE: The last thing that Gary and I talked
about is that I'd like to go ahead and send out all-county
e-mails to make sure everybody understands that we need to
stop any claims -- any more claims from 2007. We've got to
-- we've got to kind of draw a line in the sand, 'cause we're
ready to go into '08-'09, so we'd like to be able to say to
everyone you have until July 31st -- 31 days this month? --
July 31st for all 2007 claims that are sitting out there.
You've got to at least bring them to us so we know they're
there. 'Cause it's -- we don't know how many more are out
there.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would these be claims that
an individual has paid and seeks reimbursement for
personally?
MS. HYDE: Either that, or that doctor bills
weren't paid; they're starting to get collection notices.
Hospital bills weren't paid; they're getting collection
notices. That seems to be the big ones that we're getting.
You know, people were disregarding the paperwork, and now
they're getting into collections, and the collectors are
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pretty serious, and they're bringing them to us. So, we'd
like to be able to say, "Okay, 2007, that claim year is
getting ready to close."
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Why don't we set a
reasonable cutoff date each new year?
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Maybe 90 days after the
year starts.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
MR. LOONEY: Actually, that's part of the contract
that says you're supposed to report a claim from the previous
', year within the first 90 days of the following year for it to
be eligible for reimbursement.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Then we need to enforce it.
MR. LOONEY: Yeah. If it hasn't been -- if it
hasn't been reported -- if it's been reported, that means
it's still eligible to be paid; they just need additional
information. But not having received it at all, not having
it reported typically will exempt that from being an eligible
claim.
MS. HYDE: That's it on insurance.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Let's go back and talk about
the retire -- retirees.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
i
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The elderly folks. I used
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to not see that as quite as important an issue, but I've had
a paradigm shift and a revelation --
MR. LOONEY: And a birthday.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- of how important that the
program is for retirees.
MS. HYDE: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Old folks. And --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're speaking for both of
us, aren't you?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'm trying to help Bill out
here. And I just hope that you guys stay in there and, you
know, let's keep plugging at that thing till we get it right.
Thank you for that.
MS. HYDE: We all need it. We're all getting
I older.
JUDGE TINLEY: Any more questions for Ms. Hyde?
I Comments?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Thank you.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Thank you, ma'am. How about
we go to human resources generally, personnel. Ms. Hyde?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're not going to let you rest.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You're back up. H.R.
JUDGE TINLEY: H.R. generally, personnel.
MS. HYDE: Personnel. 2007-2008 has been an
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interesting year. Are we going to do all of it, or do I need
to break it down?
JUDGE TINLEY: I don't know what you got.
MS. HYDE: I guess you can stop me, right? Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Been known to happen.
MS. HYDE: We got a couple of things that we'd like
for y'all to look at. And I say "we" because I think that
this year we've done a better job at getting more folks
involved with what's going on, not only in our county, but in
our cities nearby, counties outside of the Kerr County realm,
but also looking at right here in Kerrville and Ingram and
Comfort and Hunt. I gave you something similar to this last
year. Yes, it's still small. Jeannie tried to help me blow
it up, but it is still small. That's for y'all's review.
These are the counties. You will notice, if you look at last
year or this year, we lost six counties that I tried to
compare us with. They've moved up, and we've had one that
went down quite a bit. The counties that went up went over
the 50,000, and went up 25,000 to 30,000. Some of them had
huge shifts in their population and their revenues.
For the 2007-2008 budgets, these are comparisons
for what elected officials received. There is one elected
official that's not on here, and that's the County Court at
Law Judge. The information for County Court at Law Judge was
all across the board, because in the TAC book, they ask for
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your supplements -- your base salary supplements, and it
appears that some folks did all their supplements and just
gave one salary and then didn't really break it down, so it's
all across the board. So, rather than show confusion, it's
not on there.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think, by state law, that
fluctuates depending upon what the District Judges' salaries
are as set by statute. Is that not correct, Judge Brown?
JUDGE BROWN: Yeah, right, $1,000 less than the
District Judge. It's set by statute.
JUDGE TINLEY: So that's probably not relevant to
what we're talking about.
JUDGE BROWN: No, my salary can't go up or down; it
just remains at that level.
JUDGE TINLEY: Set by state statute, and --
JUDGE BROWN: Yeah.
JUDGE TINLEY: And it's just --
MS. HYDE: They show some County Court at Law
making $35,000, and then they have some making $124,000, so
it went --
JUDGE BROWN: They came in and changed that last
year. I think it's across the board.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wouldn't you say the same
thing about the County Judge, though? He has all of the
little -- tons of little things that nobody knows about.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Tons. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Truckloads.
MS. HYDE: Well, I think that the County Judge
numbers from the TAC book are pretty consistent, and they
show different supplements. Doesn't show what the
supplements are, not by name, but it does show what the base
is, and then there's so much in supplementals. But not
all --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: They're finally revealing
all that stuff to the taxpaying public, I see. Okay, thank
you.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Ms. Hyde, do you have a list of
the neighboring counties in addition to this, such as
Kendall, Gillespie?
MS. HYDE: We have some of that information. I
didn't put it on here 'cause last year you said you didn't
want to see -- it's not real pertinent. I left those off. I
can put them back on and give them to you.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Kendall's becoming a --
MS. HYDE: Very big one.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- a good one to look at.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, it is.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: And I think Bandera is too.
Bandera's population is really growing. They have a lot of
issues going on.
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MS. HYDE: Do you want me to add Bandera and
Kendall and put it back on?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And Gillespie.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think Gillespie, because I
think they're -- I mean, different, but they're growing as
well.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We ought to compare Kimble
with Edwards.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: They're a little bit different.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You can compare Kimble to
Edwards, yes.
MS. HYDE: One thing that is different from last
i
'~ year to this year, there appear -- there appears to be a
', little bit more vehicle or travel -- not travel allowance,
~~
but mileage reimbursement. The Commissioners, the County
Judge, and the J.P.'s.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do I see that?
MS. HYDE: It's the little tiny, tiny column.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Little tiny, tiny --
MS. HYDE: Next to the bigger column.
JUDGE TINLEY: There. It has a number in there,
vehicles.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh, I see it. I see it,
yeah. I got you.
MS. HYDE: And as we continue talking, everyone
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knows fuel is quite an issue this year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Speaking of this travel
thing and vehicle issue and all that, I see it's blank in
Kerr County.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. We don't -- we don't give
anyone vehicles.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's the point here today.
MS. HYDE: And we don't give mileage reimbursement.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Right.
MS. HYDE: And that's all that is.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: For in-county service. We
don't give mileage reimbursement for miles driven within the
county.
MS. HYDE: No, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We do for miles --
MS. HYDE: We don't give mileage allowances, but --
we don't give mileage allowances; these are part of people's
salaries. I want to make sure we all understand. If it
shows "VEH" for vehicle, they actually get a real vehicle.
Or if there's a dollar amount -- I went ahead and put zeros
in there so that we'd all stay clear. If it's zeros, they
don't get anything, but if there's a dollar amount in there,
that is part of their salary, and they get that based on a
monthly basis, so that the number you're seeing is the annual
amount. Where it says $1,200, they're getting 100 bucks a
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month in their pay towards mileage.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: In today's economy, that's
two tanks of gas for a whole month.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: For a little car.
MS. HYDE: If you don't drive all around Kerr
County. 1,100 miles will use a tank of gas. Any other
questions on this one?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What's the point here?
MS. HYDE: Education and discussion.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Oh, okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Installment number two, right?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Uh-huh.
MS. HYDE: Most of you that have been in purchasing
know who Sperlings is. Sperlings is someone that D.O.L., the
government uses a lot. Then you have some that their
secondary that most of us use if we hit the Internet is
called City.com. If you're looking to move somewhere or
looking for prices, it tells you. If you look at the first
one, Sperlings tells us that from 2000 to 2007, Kerrville,
I' Texas -- they don't do it at all on counties; they do it on
cities, and Kerrville is the largest city in Kerr County. It
shows where our population is. It tells us the median home
in Kerrville is now $239,000. Now, keep in mind, I'm not an
idiot. I do understand we got lots of big houses and we got
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lots of small houses in this area. We tend to be missing a
but the future predictions goes up to 19, 20 percent. I
don't know where that's coming from. I don't understand.
Maybe that has to do with the economic group. Maybe they're
going -- there's something that other people know about.
Maybe we're going to bring in some other large businesses.
We're on an interstate. That number seems a little bit out
of whack to me, but if you look at salaries, incomes per
i
~~ capita is 22,9, and the median household income for this area
I
is $35,847. If you go to the next page, it gives you some
more breakouts. Then you go to City.com. Please notice that
the City.com data is only 2000 versus 2005. In 2005,
', Kerrville, the median household value was $109,400. In two
years, the median cost of a house has doubled. Now, as a
homeowner, I can tell you that my appraised value in the last
three years has doubled, my home cost.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But the median -- what that
fast and the lower end isn't. So --
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: -- the median's going up with
no change.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's what happened here.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That's Comanche Trace and part
I of that .
MS. HYDE: That's right, absolutely. You got it.
Part three of four.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: One potshot at a time.
MS. HYDE: This next is the first two out of three
pages from the Department of Labor facts, and what this tells
us is that already we've gone up 4.2 percent for all items
from year over year, last year to this year, 4.2 percent.
Simple math, that means if I got a dollar, and in 2007 I had
a dollar in my hand, this year that same dollar is worth 96
I cents.
JUDGE TINLEY: I did see within the last week --
and I think it was referring to the Producer's Price Index.
In June alone, it was up 1.6 or 1.8, one or the other.
MS. HYDE: 1.8.
JUDGE TINLEY: The producers for June alone.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Wholesale index.
MS. HYDE: They were supposed to come out yesterday
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with the new inflation rates. They postponed it. Typically,
when they postpone it -- and I'll let the Auditor -- y'all
can look at her as well. Typically, when they postpone
giving out rates, it's because they're trying to figure out
what happened, 'cause something has happened. And they don't
want to bring out the wrong rates, so they'll typically put
it off 24 to 48, maybe sometimes a week to make sure that
their data is accurate and correct. But all the -- all of
the indicators that are out there are saying that our
inflation rate has probably done the same thing again,
anywhere from 4 to 6 percent. So, that would take us, you
know, 8 to 10 percent as an inflation rate year over year,
which is pretty huge. Again, this is just --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Does the C.P.I. include energy?
Does the C.P.I. include -- is energy included?
MS. HYDE: Well, what they do is, all the items at
the top, sir, that's everything where they've adjusted it on
the far right, where it says 4.2.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Mm-hmm.
MS. HYDE: On the first page.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right.
MS. HYDE: And then down at the bottom, what they
do is they show all items, less food and energy, and fuel is
included into the energy. But if you go down there on the
right side, energy has gone up 17.4 percent, and food has
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gone up a total 5.1 percent, which is pretty -- which is
pretty high.
JUDGE TINLEY: Now, this is national that we're
looking at, as opposed to --
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- southwest or --
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. You've got two.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- south/southwest?
MS. HYDE: I've got you all urban on the first
page, and then I have us, the west, on the second page.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. And that shows 4.5?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What makes up
transportation?
MS. HYDE: Transportation is -- is the cost to move
the products. It is, for example, at UPS, our trucks. HEB's
trucks, anything to move people, goods, and services.
I COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Commercial movement of
products.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else you want to call
attention to in Installment 3?
MS. HYDE: Sure thing, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just full of information
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this morning, aren't you?
MS. HYDE: Well, I'm trying to remember all the
questions y'all asked last year, and trying to answer them
before you ask them. This next one is just another simple --
you can look at it. A dollar in 2007 is worth 96 cents in
2008. The next part is -- is me on a soapbox, I guess is the
best way to put it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where do you start? I'm
sorry, go ahead.
JUDGE TINLEY: The 96 cents, according to the top,
is through March of '08.
MS. HYDE: They haven't updated the B.L.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm sorry, Buster.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where does your soapbox
start?
MS. HYDE: Second paragraph.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: On Page 1?
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay.
MS. HYDE: There's a lot of stats that we use in
H.R. Most of them are useful, and they provide benchmarks
for all of us to do our job. But there's one that gives me
fits, and that's the cost of turnover. I should say stats
all the way, because the numbers are all over the place. How
do you determine how much it costs to replace an employee?
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The truth is, the number depends on the number and the -- the
actual employee themselves. What are you trying to replace?
If you're trying to replace a relatively new employee,
unskilled, then the cost, of course, is going to be just your
cost for advertising and bringing them in. But if you've got
two, three years experience in this employee, it can be as
much as a year salary, because you're going to spend six to
twelve months training this person how to take money, how to
use the computer system, get bonded, understanding, make sure
that -- that is -- that's unquantifiable. I know that
there's a lot of stress involved. I know that morale gets
tough. If you're short-staffed in an office of one, and
you've got that one person that has just left you, it hurts
you pretty bad. The bigger the office, the more that you can
absorb. We all know that, but it still hurts when you're
losing as many people as we're starting to lose in this
county.
In the last year, we've taken over 100 applications
in the H.R. office. A hundred. And out of that 100, we've
had 15 that are viable, that meet just the minimum standards
on the application process. We're not even talking if they
have the stuff to do the job. I'm talking about that they
can answer, "No, no, no, no, no, no" to those questions that
we can legally ask. When we start getting into whether they
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have the skills to do the job, then -- then we lose even
more. So, 15 out of every 100 people that we're getting
start out as viable, and then we end up cutting those to less
a maintenance person since January. We've run ads. We've
tried to bring people in. It is tough. It's getting tougher
finding people, and qualified people.
If you go to the last page, I'll skip the rest of
the soapbox. Consumer prices rose 4.2 percent from April to
April, 2007 to 2008. Energy costs are up 15.9 percent. Food
costs are on the rise. Bread prices is 14 percent higher
summer, so -- milk in my house normally goes bad before I
drink it. When you have a kid, they drink it. I did not
realize that milk costs so much. It's more than gas. I told
her we'll just go to the damn gas pump and we'll fill her up,
because she drinks a lot of milk. I mean, our food and our
fuel is -- is killing a lot of folks out here right now. And
everyone that you look at, even people that are very
conservative, are telling us we need to be careful. We need
to look at what's going on.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How many Kerr County
employees are eligible for food stamps?
MS. HYDE: Everyone that is in our Grade 13, 14,
and currently 15 are eligible for food stamps in Kerr County.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is that at or below the
poverty -- federal poverty level?
MS. HYDE: It puts them right on the lip. It puts
them right on the lip. If they work an extra job, then they
go over that lip, and then they lose their stamps, or they
can lose any of the benefits the state and federal government
gives them.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: How -- do we have any
information or, I guess, data that's easily accessible as to
how many of our employees -- how far away from, I guess,
their work they live? For example, and I know James Avery --
I know a lot of people in Kerrville drive to Fredericksburg;
people in Fredericksburg drive to Kerrville and back, and,
you know, we have the same issues with lots of our people.
MS. HYDE: We have a lot of folks that are on the
edges. And by "edges," I mean they live in Medina, Bandera,
they live in Center Point, Hunt, Comfort, Ingram. So, yes,
sir, we have a lot of folks that live that way.
AUDIENCE: Fredericksburg.
MS. HYDE: Fredericksburg, Harper.
JUDGE TINLEY: When we did the -- the survey study
for the economic development plan generally in the county, we
came up with 21 percent don't live in Kerr County of our
labor force, of our workers.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I would -- I thought that would
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be the case. I just wanted to know if there was extra data.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's data from last year.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You can -- you can use those
same figures, basically, for Kerr County employees?
JUDGE TINLEY: This was county-wide.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, I understand.
JUDGE TINLEY: So I -- you know, I don't know that
we can say with --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Is that what you're saying?
JUDGE TINLEY: -- with scientific certainty.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You're using Kerr County
employees only, aren't you?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. You know, I was
listening yesterday to them talk about how some of the
counties are going to the four-day work week, and I don't
know. You know, Bexar County's talking about it right now.
And I don't know if we're large enough to even consider that,
but if we are, we probably need to talk about that. I mean,
I can see -- I can see what they're doing. You're talking
about fuel savings and several other things. And I'm just
not sure we have enough employees to even consider doing
something like that, if there would be a savings. But --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we ought to throw it
out there. I think what we should do --
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sorry, I can't hear you.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think we should throw that
idea out for discussion.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, sure.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And also let our department
.heads and elected officials survey their -- their employees
and see if that would be an option, and if there could be
some cost savings, which I think there would be.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I do too.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Plus it would give those
employees that wanted to take advantage of maybe part-time
jobs to subsidize their income, and I think we can cut some
of our cost by having a four-day work week.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If you had a 10-hour -- if
the courthouse was open a 10-hour day, as opposed to eight or
seven and a half in some cases, then the public has more
access to their -- their daily business, or government
business.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I really would like to see
the department heads and elected officials survey their
employees and see if they'd be interested in doing it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Part of the equation is it
reduces the County's operating cost for facilities.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't know yet. Somebody
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would have to give us a formula for the reduction of one
fifth, as opposed to the increase of two hours per day. But
that's part of the equation.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I mean, and what I'm thinking
-- well, I'm thinking like a flex time, where you're talking
about the courthouse will be open five days a week, just
different employees on a given day.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You could do it that way
too.
JUDGE TINLEY: That would be another option, to
have a five-day -- have a five-day program, but employees --
but that creates a lot of personnel management problems, and
with offices with a smaller number of personnel, it creates
complications.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I just don't think it would
work.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Doesn't do anything for
facilities operations, reducing operating costs.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But it's just that the issue of
-- of cutting -- having some of the courthouse closed, or
only open four days a week, there's a possible down side.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: There's a down side, but the
good side is that people that are working 8:00 to 5:00 jobs
could come in before they go to work and do their business,
and after they leave from work.
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MS. HYDE: A couple of things to also consider,
though. Three of your biggest areas -- law enforcement, Road
and Bridge, and our J.D.C. -- largest populations, they're 24
by 7, except for Road and Bridge. Now, of course, they're on
call, but the difference is -- Leonard and I have talked
about this as well -- you're increasing your risk to those
folks. Why? Ten hours outside right now in the Texas sun?
Your production level goes like this, and our safety issues
go like that. So, he and I have talked about it. Not to
mention that you also -- when you go from five 8's to four
10's, the four 10 guys and gals now earn overtime after 10,
right? But we pay them for, currently, sick time at 10
hours, vacation time, holiday time, so it is an increase in
pure dollars if you go to four 10's. In one small office, we
already figured it. It's going to be about four grand just
on holiday time as an increase.
MR. ODOM: And the sick leave.
MS. HYDE: And the sick leave. So, most people,
when they work 10's or 12's, they're doing shift work, or
types of shift work. One suggestion might be if we want to
give more time to the public and open the offices longer,
people can do flexible start times. You come in at 7:00, you
come in at 8:00, you come in at 9:00, and those people stay
later, so that you have 7 o'clock openings and you have
6 o'clock closings. Nobody wants to really look at that.
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And if we close -- if we close the courthouse, you're
absolutely right, someone needs to figure out -- because
you're still going to have power; you're still going to use
air conditioning, you're still going to use heat, and those
things are still going to be constant. We don't turn down
the heaters. We don't turn down the air conditioning on the
weekends.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We should. We're going to be
closed for three days.
MS. HYDE: I know. I know, but these are ways that
we can start -- you know, we turn off the lights, but we
don't power down. John's started a new power-down --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Four-day work week, if you've
got three days off, the systems need to be turned down.
MS. HYDE: Right. John started --
MR. BOLLIER: Air conditioners are set at night
where they are not -- they are pre-occupied, where they're
not occupied. They're set on a total -- sir?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Thermostat controls are
different. Some of them are occupied times and non-occupied
times.
MR. BOLLIER: They're unoccupied at night. They're
unoccupied at night; they are set to a higher temperature, to
where they come on at 7 o'clock in the morning to -- to the
occupied time during the day.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everywhere except in my
office.
MS. HYDE: So, the point is, there'd be no real
change.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Except everybody on earth
can do these things and make it work, but when it gets to
Kerr County, we can't do it. The sky starts falling. Why?
MS. HYDE: It's not the sky is falling. We just
want to make sure you have all sides of it.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MS. HYDE: It is going to be a nightmare for some
of the medium-sized offices to control. The Sheriff's Office
uses shift work. Kevin Stanton's group uses shift work. How
hard is it, guys, to manage the shift workers? When you got
folks out, it's hard.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Before she completely kills
the thing, I still think that your idea -- I'd like to know
what the employees think about it, at least, and go from
there.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I don't see how it
increases --
MS. BOLIN: Tax Office already said yes.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The Tax Office?
25 ~ COMMISSIONER LETZ: What they're saying is you have
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a 10-hour holiday. If you give them -- if every vacation is
-- it's a 10-hour day versus an 8-hour day. Or if you're
sick --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Still 40 hours, though.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, but it's your holidays
and your sick time. Those become --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Could that not be adjusted?
Or is that federal law?
MS. HYDE: No. And if you go through four 10's,
and let's say, you know, after the election, the economy
straightens back out and everybody comes home and everything
starts going back in line. You can't swap from -- you can go
from five 8's to four 10's, no problem, because your F.L.S.A.
laws will cover it, and you'll be okay with your hourly
rates. But going from 10's back to 8's, guess what? There's
guidelines. If you have so much time that you've worked
10-hour schedules versus 8-hour schedules, when you go back,
the employees can say that should all be overtime, 'cause my
year was really five 8's and not four 10's.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're not talking about going
back.
MS. HYDE: Okay.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: We're talking about going
forward.
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SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Bruce, what the issue is --
Bruce, what the issue is is what Jonathan said. It's -- and
I run into it because we work 12's, okay? That what is now
currently an 8-hour holiday, all right, is now a 10-hour
holiday, because they're off the whole day, right? Or
they're working that whole day. So, instead of having eight
hours of holiday pay, now you got ten hours holiday pay, and
trying to flex that off -- sick leave is the same way. It
really gets difficult trying to do that, because they say,
"I'm working the whole holiday." You know, "Why am I only
getting eight hours for it? I'm working this 10."
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: As far as your situation,
it's going to be that way from now on, because you do 24/7.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah, mine doesn't change.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Yours doesn't change. And
Road and Bridge -- well, actually, I think is somewhat doing
this now.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, you could soften the impact on
holidays if you made the -- the four-day week Tuesday through
Friday, because a lot of the holidays are mandated on Monday.
MS. HYDE: Holidays are on Mondays.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a thought.
MS. HYDE: You still have to pay them straight time
for the holiday. If it's a holiday, an approved holiday, we
pay it regardless of whether you work or don't.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we can save fuel, or if
there's a possibility of saving fuel and things like that, I
think we'd -- let's talk about it at least. That's what
we're talking about.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think you'd get more
productivity. I understand 10 hours is long, but I tell you
what, if I were given the option, if I were one of the
employees, I would much rather put in four 10's and have a
three-day weekend to be able to do the things I would prefer.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Absolutely.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think you'll find that
category -- at first, when I went to 12's, 'cause that's what
we work, we thought 12 was a long time. But if you actually
look at how long that employee -- you know, ours are at least
doing paperwork, things like that. But by the time they came
to work, got back home, it was really right at 12 hours
anyway, 10 to 12 hours. The employees really enjoy it
better; it doesn't affect them that much.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree, 'cause I think you --
on a 10-hour work day, you have a lot of start-up and
wind-down times that is wasted time from a productivity
standpoint, and you can get rid of that. And I don't mean --
nothing against the employees. It's just a matter of
start-up and close-down.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I bet you can put your
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hands on studies that -- that have researched productivity of
a 10-hour day, four days, times the 40-hour work week, five
times 8, can't you? I'll bet you they're going to show the
productivity drops.
MS. HYDE: And I didn't want to say it, 'cause
Commissioner Baldwin already feels like I'm downing it. It's
not that I'm downing it. Productivity normally shows a spurt
', during the first 30 to 90 days, but then it starts coming --
it starts declining, and it just follows the same route as if
you're working 8 hours or 10 hours or 12 hours. If the
production in 8 hours is 6, then the production in 10 will be
8, and the production in 12 will be 10. There's a loss of an
hour to two hours in most jobs anywhere you go. So, you
~ know, it's -- it's -- it doesn't matter. Any way that would
help would be great.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You don't have the same loss
in an 8-hour work day?
MS. HYDE: Sure. Sure.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're only getting six.
MS. HYDE: That's what I'm saying. You're getting
six, and then you're getting eight.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You're actually --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You pick up two hours.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pick up two hours.
MS. HYDE: Pick up two hours out of the loss.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Out of the loss. Is there --
are there any regulations about having to do it county-wide,
or can you do it department by department?
MS. HYDE: You can do it however you want to. The
deal is, we just really have to watch going from five 8's to
four 10's. You can change, but if anyone changes back,
that's when we really have to --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah, okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Uecker? She had a question for
Eva, I'm sure.
MS. UECKER: No, I just wanted to tell you that I
did that for two and a half years. We remained open five
days a week, but my staff worked four 10-hour days. They
loved it. I didn't, 'cause it was a scheduling headache.
And, finally, when I got some new staff and people wanted to
trade days, I finally said, "Okay, that's it; it's enough."
But they did like it. But it might be different if you
actually were closed the same day every week. There wouldn't
that be scheduling. But I did do it for two and a half
years, and they liked it.
JUDGE TINLEY: If you close one of those days, you
take the personnel management issue out of it.
MS. UECKER: Right, and that was my point.
JUDGE TINLEY: Leonard?
MR. ODOM: Yes, sir. I tried this several years
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ago when I came here, and it worked for a good while.
Scheduling was a deal, because I had to go five days a week,
so I split up my forces at that point, and I was weak because
of sealcoat. Then I had problems with sick leave. I would
end up basically looking at three-day -- you know, three days
out of some people. Then I hit the 10's and what you had to
do and what they made and what they were being charged. It's
not -- you know, if we're off and I don't have to do that,
maybe it would eliminate that, but we had to maintain that.
It just was not productive. And then the wintertime, I had
to go to a five-day work week, because it's ludicrous to be
out there in the dark, because you're not going to -- it's
wasted time; they're not going to get anything done, and
they're going to be there on the road before the people start
coming to work. It's not good, and I lose the productivity.
So, you know, we went back to fives and we tried it. And I
warned the guys for several years there that we ran it,
I Bruce --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I know.
MR. ODOM: -- but they were abusing what I thought
was sick leave, because I was ending up with people -- you
know, crews were short. And I've only got three-man crews.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Mm-hmm.
MR. ODOM: So -- but I had to -- I had to man five
days a week. It's not that -- theoretically, it's there, and
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I would probably save fuel and it probably would do it. But
if we were off and the people knew that, it may work. But I
had to stay there five days.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If you were there four days,
would it work?
MR. ODOM: Pardon?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: If you were there four days
and closed for three, that would work?
MR. ODOM: I would say that we probably could, but
before I didn't do that; I kept it mandatory.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Except for winter. I think you
have a good point, in winter.
MR. ODOM: Wintertime, it's really ludicrous,
unless you change the time. But it's even short in the
evening, and it's certainly dark in the morning.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You just go to earlier; you
show up at work at 6 o'clock.
MR. ODOM: But you understand, if it's really cold,
you don't do anything with that diesel engine until it warms
up. 'Cause if it's too early in the morning, it's too cold.
I'm just saying that there's a lot of things --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: But that's rare. That's not
an everyday thing, when it's so cold the morning, whatever.
It's really not. I mean, we have winters that are
periodically, but they are --
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MR. ODOM: I'm not talking about Alaska. I'm
talking about maintainers and stuff like that, and I'm just
telling you, there's some things there. But if we were down,
maybe so. But before when I tried it, it was a five-day work
week.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: My dad used to tell me when
it was cold, you did the work a little faster. (Laughter.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Only issue you have to also
look at -- it can work, 'cause as you know, we do it all the
time; I don't have a choice. But one issue you do have to
look at, and I mentioned to it Bruce earlier, is that where
you've got single parents or both parents work, and you got
kids that are in day care and things like that, that you have
to watch your hours of those operations to be able to control
that. We have that issue a lot in our office, where
different people that are off will work out something for
them to pick up the other one's kids and that because of the
-- the shift-type stuff. So, you have to watch that when you
get over that 8-hour day.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Pro and con to everything.
MS. HYDE: Absolutely.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: It's just work.
MR. ODOM: If it's directed by the Court, that's
what -- we'll come up with a plan, okay? If that's your
direction.
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MS. UECKER: Well, and to his -- his response about
taking responsibility for ourselves after hours. I mean, I
don't think the County should be responsible for making sure
that, you know, everybody's kids get picked up. I mean, I
had to do it myself when I was working and had little ones.
MR. ODOM: These days, it's different times.
MS. UECKER: Unfortunately.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Hyde, I'm sure that all of this
MS. HYDE: I'm not done with the other things I
MS. HYDE: We need to ponder changing the payment
of our comp time for holiday pay. Currently, in several
departments, the comp time for holiday pay is -- is banked.
They can -- they can use it for time off. We've talked about
it. And the comp time for holiday pay should be paid; it's
budgeted already. We budget holiday payment for all the
employees. When we get the holiday, it needs to be paid.
That way we're not banking additional time, 'cause that hits
our liability lines.
MR. ODOM: Say again?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Pay the overtime --
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MS. HYDE: If they worked. If they didn't work,
they get straight time.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Yeah.
MS. HYDE: 'Cause those times are going into banks
that keep growing. So, we have some banks that are large,
and we all know that.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We have some that are --
MS. HARGIS: Huge.
MS. HYDE: And what happens is, if I'm making $10
an hour this year when I earn it, but I've been here five
years, and it sits in that bank, and now I'm making $20 an
hour, then you're paying me at $20 an hour, not the $10. So,
it is -- it does cost us quite a bit. We're talking 13
holidays; it should be paid as we go.
JUDGE TINLEY: Do we not have a policy that
requires comp time to either be paid or taken within -- my
recollection was 90 days.
MS. HYDE: It was 90 days, but on comp time for the
holiday pay, that was on a separate item. And when you start
ending all these times that are banked, it gets difficult,
especially in your shift work, for them to ever use it.
Because in your shift work, if you're on two, off two, on
two, off three -- you know, if you take off two days, you got
four days. That's like a vacation. So, using the time when
you work jobs like that is less, so they keep banking more
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and more and it keeps growing.
JUDGE TINLEY: What you're saying is, if we need
to -- if we want that holiday comp to be included as part of
the -- we need to specifically include it under the policy?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: What is that?
JUDGE TINLEY: Is that what you're telling me?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All it is, what she's talking
about, that's an example in a big department. That's what my
current stats are right now, holiday and comp and vacation.
Current employees, as you can see, it gets extremely large.
That's just my information.
MS. HYDE: All I'm asking is that holiday pay is
paid as the holiday occurs. So, we're already in the budget.
We need to just go ahead and make it a policy, for y'all to
ponder that we make that a policy. You get holiday pay;
that's in our benefits. We pay it.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, Sheriff, looking at -- you've
got vacation in here also, and I note some of those are in
excess of 160 hours. The personnel policy says as of the
beginning of any fiscal year, any accrued vacation time in
excess of 160 is lopped off.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I have no issue with that
if I had the personnel to be able to give those guys that
~, time off. But when a person cannot take it, or he's taken
it, but in that same pay period he's put in so much overtime
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that it washes out what he's taken, okay, you can't do
anything about that. It goes up and there's nothing I can
do, and we carry it on the books. I don't know what else to
give it to them off. They would take it off in a heartbeat,
Judge, if they could, okay? But if we force them to take it
off, then you're not going to have a patrolman one on the
streets at times. You can see that by the amount of time
It's a --
JUDGE TINLEY: Are these people not requesting --
you can ask some of the former employees here. We assign
them time off, but then during that same pay period,
something will happen and they will be putting in overtime,
okay? I had a man -- one this last pay period; he asked for
60 hours off for vacation, all right? He was denied 30 of
it, because we didn't have the manpower. Other people had to
put in for it, okay? So, then he had 30 hours he'd taken
off, and as of last night, when he was called back in because
we had an incident in the jail, he had already gone over in
regular time, as of this morning, 24 hours. So, now you took
the 30 he was approved to be off, but he's already put in
another 24 hours of overtime, so the only thing he's not
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getting paid is overtime, but he's not losing that vacation
time. So, the only vacation time he's actually going to lose
is six hours, when he tried to take 30.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Are you going to be arrested
by the constable and thrown in jail for not letting people
take their time off?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That could probably happen,
'cause he's one of the ones that lost it in this area, yeah.
But that's the issue, and I'm not -- we need to stay on this.
That was just for information. I'm not trying to start
anything.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well --
MS. HYDE: The only reason why I bought it up -- I
didn't know you were going to throw that out there, but the
reason I bring it up, that will help decrease some of these
excessive, over 160 hours.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That will help a lot.
MS. HYDE: Because they got to use it. That's 13
more days that they -- that you get off with pay before you
ever have to start using vacation time that you're earning as
you go.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And what she was saying, if
I've lost some of those people and we paid it, some of those
hours are quite a bit. They earned those hours three years
ago. Some of them, I'm still trying to get rid of from over
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eight years ago, from prior to my taking office, okay?
JUDGE TINLEY: It occurs to me --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Now they're getting paid at
today's rate, compared to the rate they earned it at.
JUDGE TINLEY: It occurs to me, then, that we --
what we really need to do is change the policy instead of
saying that anything over 160 at the beginning of each fiscal
year, you lose, to you lose it if you ask to take the time
off and were denied the right to take the time off. Is that
not correct?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What we do -- and just to set
this straight, if I lose an employee, okay, they actually
only get paid for the 160, all right? But this is what
they've earned. Now, you also have the holiday time in
there. I guess in a lot of ways, they do get paid for the
full amount, because what we will -- what we have to do
sometimes to do it is, I lose -- today is their last day of
actual work, okay, but then you have to let them burn that
off, and their last day of actual employment may be a month
down the road, and I'm without them, and everybody else's
adds up. But I don't want to sidetrack -- she brought -- I
didn't even know she was going to bring that up.
MS. HYDE: I wasn't going to tell anybody.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I just had those figures, and
I thought, to show the importance, that I'd let you see
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those. That should probably come up at a different time in
my budget discussion.
MS. HYDE: I hadn't mentioned any names or any
offices. All I was trying to do was get us to pay the comp
time, 'cause I think it'll help on all our numbers in the
liability.
MR. STANTON: I mean, I guess at the Detention
Center, one of the issues that we run into -- it's not
exactly like the Sheriff's, though -- is that is when you
have people that -- that resign or people that get fired for
whatever reason, leave your employment, then you're looking
at affecting your payroll, your total payroll, by having to
pay all this off. I mean, if you're having to pay off 300
hours of vacation time and 150 hours of comp time and, you
know, 60 hours of holiday time, well, that takes a big chunk
out of your budget, which affects everybody else in your
department.
MS. HYDE: Right. That's why you end up with short
staff and then they start working overtime, because they
can't hire somebody 'cause they've still got somebody on the
payroll.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Does she have a solution?
JUDGE TINLEY: She's going to get --
MS. HYDE: It was real simple; it was a sentence
that we just pay the holiday pay to everyone as the holiday
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occurs. I wasn't going into get into all of that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Thank you. Sit down.
You're pretty close to sitting down, aren't you?
MS. HYDE: Uh-huh. With the cost of fuel, some of
the J.P.'s have talked to me, and I've talked to a couple of
y'all. Would it be possible to consider putting in a car or
a vehicle that can be shared by all four J.P.'s? The Sheriff
said that he would, you know, monitor, make sure that the car
was where it needed to be. But then, that way, they would
have a vehicle for on-call, or to look at some sort of
supplement for their on-call for mileage.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I'd rather purchase a car,
myself. I'd rather have the car out there and it be one of
these sissy cars that saves fuel, Prius or --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: A hybrid.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, hybrid is what I'm
trying to say. "Sissy" is the wrong choice of words, I'm
sorry. But a hybrid vehicle like everybody else is doing to
save fuel. I'm certainly in favor of that. I can see -- I
see what you're saying and what they're saying.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Just for use on the on-call
weeks? Is that what you're talking about?
MS. HYDE: Right, for their on-call. It wouldn't
be their personal vehicle. You know, it would be shared.
And the Sheriff said that he would look over it. We could
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park it here or park it over at the Sheriff's office.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Wait a minute.
MS. HYDE: You said you'd monitor --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I thought you were talking
about a courthouse car that would stay here for courthouse
employees to run back and forth.
MS. HYDE: We11, it would be both.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's what you asked me.
MS. HYDE: There were two -- I said two cars.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I agree with J.P.'s needing
it, but as far as us taking care of the -- I don't think we
would need to. If they each take it the week they're on
call, and that's -- and that's their -- you know, their deal
to maintain and take care of it. I don't think the Sheriff's
office has anything to do with that.
MS. HYDE: We were just going to make sure it
didn't get stolen.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's their problem.
(Laughter.) How can I make sure of that?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'd like to hear from the
J.P.'s on that, because I think you also end up with saying
that car can then only be used -- it'd be the same policy
that Road and Bridge has and Sheriff has; they can't stop at
the store on the way home. I mean, they have to -- so
they're going to have to go from the courthouse -- get in
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their car and drive to the courthouse, and then go from there
to State Hospital, and come back here and get in their car
and go to the grocery store. I mean, I'm not sure it's going
to save them any money.
AUDIENCE: That's twice as many miles.
MR. BILLEITER: This is the first I've heard of
this. I don't see how that would work. I really don't. It
sounds like a nightmare to me. I come here, park my car, get
in another car and drive? I'd -- and plus I'm on call every
day. I mean, I make three trips in a day sometimes, because
the hospital's in my precinct. That's where a lot of people
die. So, that wouldn't help me a bit.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Far as I'm concerned, the
conversation's over. That's my J.P.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think -- I think from a -- we
may want to look at something we got rid of a long time ago,
is a vehicle allowance.
MS. HYDE: Right, and that was part two. A car or
i
i
a vehicle allowance.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's more workable.
MS. HYDE: Did you hear the second part?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to see these little
green things, though.
(Low-voice discussion off the record.)
MS. HYDE: That's it. That's all the things I've
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got.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In my mind, it's kind of like
the constables. You need to give them all one, or you don't
give any of them one, the ones that you give them a car
allowance.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Too much logistics in that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It just won't -- I don't
believe it -- it's time for that.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You --
MS. HYDE: Are you going to hit the panic button?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All hell breaks loose.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are we done yet?
MS. HYDE: I got two more things. One is the
~i
request for the retirement. We talked about -- last year it
went from 180 to 210, and we've talked about it going up
again this year to 230, and I'd like for y'all to ponder
that. It is in the budget currently.
i MS. HARGIS: Not all of it, no.
MS. HYDE: It's not?
MS. HARGIS: No.
MS. HYDE: Okay, it's not.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 210 is.
MS. HYDE: 210 is.
MS. HARGIS: 210 is. Right now, we're at 9.52.
9.52, and the current rate would go to 9.55. So, just to
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keep the current rate, to go to the 220, it's 9.94, and then
to the 230 is 10.35. It's not very much money. To go to the
220 is $30,000. To go to the 230 is $63,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: How much?
MS. HYDE: Sixty-three.
MS. HARGIS: 63,000. So, it's not a lot of --
because you're not talking large -- you're just talking
tenths here. So, in the overall scope of things, it's not
that much, but it's not plugged in now because it hadn't been
approved, and I didn't want to plug something in that wasn't
approved.
MS. HYDE: We tried to go to 250; that became cost
prohibitive. It, like, doubled.
MS. HARGIS: Yeah. After 230, it goes to
200-something thousand dollars; it really jumps, because
you're at 10 percent, so then you go to 11, then to 12. So
then it really starts to -- so we'd have to take, you know,
either one increment or two. I think that's the max we could
', go.
MS. HYDE: So we're requesting the 2.3, 230, $2.30,
230 percent, however you want to --
JUDGE TINLEY: 2.3.
MS. HARGIS: And that includes the group term life
insurance, and a 14 percent for the COLA for the retirees.
JUDGE TINLEY: .14 cost for 50 percent COLA-based
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increase, right? For retirees?
MS. HYDE: Right. Okay. I think the last thing in
talked with all of the department heads. That means elected,
appointed, directors, whatever we want to call them, and what
they have all agreed to is that we believe that we should ask
for a 10 percent across-the-board raise. There's the shoe.
However, what everyone did -- we met yesterday. We didn't
hide it. I think everybody kind of heard us whispering about
it Monday in court. We all talked about it, and everyone's
looking at their budget to see what else can they cut. We've
had two of the biggest groups, Road and Bridge and Sheriff's
office, had whacked theirs huge, between half a million to a
million dollars when you start pulling it all together. Is
that not correct? That we've pulled out. Everyone's agreed
they'll go back and look.
There's a few folks that are still going to push
very, very hard -- and, I mean, I don't see why not; that
they do deserve some people and need some people, but they'll
do that in their individual budgets. As far as cutting,
everyone's looking. And I think I stand here not just by
myself on an island, but I think that that's why everyone is
in here. They're willing to do whatever is necessary -- all
of us are -- to try not to make it where, okay, where we got
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to grow the budget, and we want this raise for our people.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You're talking about
$800,000.
MS. HYDE: Be about a million.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Are you saying a 10 percent
salary increase? Salary increase?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For elected officials?
MS. HYDE: Everyone.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Everyone across the board?
MS. HYDE: Everyone.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that takes care of the
milk at H.E.B.
MS. HYDE: I hope so.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And the gasoline and the --
those damn people that pick up my trash.
MS. HYDE: B.F.I.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Electric bill.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah, all those things. The
10 percent will take care of that?
MS. HYDE: It does two things. And they might like
to throw stuff at me; that's why I get real nervous when
they're all behind me.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see here --
MS. HYDE: There's two --
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- on something you gave us
that it -- we see that one of the indexes said 7 percent.
MS. HYDE: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And we're talking 10 now.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. There's two things. If you
look at -- and I'm going to use our housekeeping staff and
kennel workers; they're 13's. We also have -- a lot of our
staffs are 13's and 14's right now, and that average wage for
those folks is $24,500. And they've been here not, like, one
or two years; we're talking six and seven years. So, I said,
okay, last year I bombed when I tried to do it by county, so
this year I'm going to do it by the city. We have three
major people that we compete with for our people. We're the
bottom. We are the absolute bottom. And I'd rather not name
them, 'cause I'm afraid that I'm going to get, like, blasted,
but we're between $2,000 and $6,000 off all our job classes.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Name them. City?
MS. HYDE: The City of Kerrville, the hospitals,
and Avery's.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
MS. HYDE: I didn't use Mooney's, 'cause I'm
unsure. Mooney, when they're running well -- and even they
have done the layoff. Everyone knows they've had a large
layoff. But, you know, I will use the housekeeping. If I go
to work for these other places as a housekeeper, I'm going to
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start out at 28,5, and our folks start out at 23.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Well, I agree 100 percent.
We've got -- things are getting tough. They really are
getting tough.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And I think that we have to
step up to the plate and take care of our county employees,
and then if we don't get pencils in your office, I couldn't
care less. Unless you go to Number 3 leads and Big Chiefs.
But I just think we need to settle on what the number's going
to be, whether it's 10 or 11 or 7. You know, I just --
MS. HYDE: I'm requesting 10 percent.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's my question, is where
-- where is that number? I agree that we need to move to
something, and I'm there 100 percent.
MS. HYDE: It does two things. One, you know, it's
real easy to say it's because bread prices have risen and gas
prices have risen, but, you know, we all understand that
trends are cyclical. So right now, yes, inflations's going
up. Some people say it's the '70's and '80's all over again.
But what happened? Then we go back down and we have really
great times. So let's be optimistic. I'll be optimistic and
say, okay, the election's going to solve it. We're going to
come back down. Our folks, even with a 10 percent raise --
forget inflation, forget all this other superfluous stuff.
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Look at just where we're at. Our folks are the lowest paid.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
i
MS. HYDE: So, to me, that's hitting two bases at
one time. As inflation and -- and things decrease again --
you know, I don't think I'll ever see the price of gas at two
bucks again in my lifetime, but it brings us closer into this
realm. When you talk about Kendall County and Gillespie
County trying to hire for law enforcement -- I know that we
said it yesterday; he brings a lot of stuff up. But trying
to hire for law enforcement, it's not just law enforcement
any more. I'm trying to hire a maintenance guy or gal.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
MS. HYDE: And it's shrinking.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You hit on a good point,
too. If Obama gets elected, I mean, all of our problems are
over. We don't even have to come to work. (Laughter.) We
won't even have to come to work; they will just send us a
check to the house and we can just lay around.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you talking about
$800,000 as being a --
MS. HYDE: It's like -- it's about $800,000 to
$850,000 straight, and then Jeannie is the numbers lady;
she's got to give you guys the numbers.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. My point is, or is
going to be, in this discussion, this community-wide
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discussion that took place, --
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- you came up with this
magic number of 10.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Which would equate to twice
the C.P.I.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If we consider this, it's
going to end up around 5 percent or more.
MS. HYDE: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Did you also talk about how
you're going to help us get there?
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I think I asked all of them,
would they be willing to look at their constituents? Would
they be able to talk to taxpayers and explain to them how
come we need to raise taxes?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Whoa, hold on. Hold on.
Did you also talk about how you're going to help us get there
with respect to costs? Not new revenues.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Costs.
MS. HYDE: That's why I talked about the budget.
Most folks are going back -- everybody said they would go
back and they're going to try to cut their cost back to what
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it was this year. So, let's say there -- my little budget
this year was $130,000.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's $135,737.
MS. HYDE: So, whatever it is --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What are you going to cut?
MS. HYDE: I need to stay -- I need to stay there.
There is no increase, and I need to try to cut something.
Well, I did; I cut hours on somebody. I need to cut some of
my conference, and what we need to look at are things that we
can do in-house for training. You know, if everyone just
tightens their belt a little bit, then -- Jeannie, any time
you want to step up here and start talking numbers with me,
I'd appreciate it. That --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I want to know -- I want to
know, what kind of tax increase are we talking about?
Two pennies? Four pennies?
MS. HARGIS: Probably around 3.15. And then we're
going to have to go up on Leonard's .08. That's as much as
he can go, 'cause his rollback is .0312. He's at -- at .0304
right now. We -- we took a little bit from him last year.
He could have gone to 3.9, and we drew at .0309. And that
would probably held him level. Leonard has cut his budget as
well. Leonard has done very well with his budget this year,
so his fund balance coming in is going to help him to offset
what he needs to do there. With the general fund, last
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Thursday we had an $891,000 deficit. I worked on that for
eight hours, with the Sheriff coming into my office, tweaking
the revenue and really looking hard at everything we had. I
zeroed that out. Now, you guys haven't gone through and
looked at everybody else's budget. After yesterday,
everybody agreed to go back -- we have 49 departments, and so
I kind of gave them an idea; if you can cut 100, if you can
cut 500, whatever it is, times 49, you're looking at a lot of
money. The Judge has already cut 64,000. I'm watching what
he's doing compared to requested. We need a million --
little bit better than a million, and that includes
everybody.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Jeannie? Are we talking two
and a half cents?
MS. HARGIS: Two for y'all, and then -- and then
the Road and Bridge, .08.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see.
MS. HARGIS: So, 2.25.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 2.25.
MS. HARGIS: 2.13 will do it, but I think, you
know, when you get into odd pennies, it's kind of hard to do.
I'd rather you go to 2.15. And we're talking two-tenths of a
cent here. I think that will get us to where we need to be.
We have pretty much zeroed out this year's budget. We really
started at a million six, so considering that, before it even
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got to you guys, we got it down to zero, and I think you'll
look at that. I think that's pretty good. Now, people have
looked and -- and I don't see many increases. The biggest
thing is fuel. The next thing that we're going to have to go
back and look at is group insurance. I'm going to have to go
back to group insurance.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute. You're
getting out of bounds here too much. I want to stay on this
salary thing just -- just for a moment. I mean, I just want
to be clear in my mind so I can either help you or tell you
to hush. 2.3 cents?
MS. HARGIS: 2.25.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 2.25 cents will generate
enough money for a -- for a salary increase for all of our
employees to stay up with inflation, basically?
MS. HARGIS: Yes, sir.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that's all we're talking
about, is a salary increase. We're talking about a tax
increase to cover a salary increase so that our employees
don't have to be on food stamps.
MS. HARGIS: That's correct.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Okay, that's all I need to
know, thank you. Now you can launch off out there on
gasoline and all that other stuff.
MS. HARGIS: I'll wait till later.
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JUDGE TINLEY: How many employees did -- did we
lose last year?
MS. HYDE: Total?
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm, approximately.
MS. HYDE: The Sheriff was in a constant state of
flux. He always had -- and sometimes he and I discuss
terminology. He calls it openings. He doesn't have
openings. As soon as they -- they quit or get fired or
separate, whatever, he's hired someone else, so it's constant
churn. So, it appears that it's open, but it's not, because
it takes time to train those folks. To answer your question,
we lost between 25 and 50 people last year.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. How many of those did you do
exit interviews with?
MS. HYDE: About half of them.
JUDGE TINLEY: And do you think -- I assume you
asked them --
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir. I have ten questions.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- why you -- why you're taking a
hike.
MS. HYDE: Well, it's in that thing that -- I got
off my soapbox, 'cause Mr. Baldwin said that I was going too
long, so I was trying to hurry.
JUDGE TINLEY: You asked them why they left?
MS. HYDE: I did. I asked them why they left, and
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the reason why they said they left is because they need
money. They need the benefits, too, but their rationale at
that time was that they could travel farther to get more
they had the benefits and they had the pay, but now -- now
they're like -- they're pretty puckered. So, now they have
to look at even moving, because they can't afford it.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Four I've lost this year. Two
of them I lost to Kendall County, okay, one just in the last
couple weeks, and number one, because of pay, and because of
gas. Two of them I lost to Kerrville Police Department,
because they're also paying for them to go through the
academy, and then it's the pay. The 10 percent figure, where
Buster was asking, "Why 10? Why not 7 or 12, whatever?"
10 percent will put Kerr County employees -- maintenance,
too; I'm not just talking law enforcement, okay. It will
still put our employees a little bit below Kerrville P.D. or
Kerrville -- City of Kerrville, Kendall County, Gillespie
County. We will still be below those. We will still be on
the low end, but we will be -- with the benefits package
that -- that the County offers, we will be competitive.
Right now, we're just not competitive because we're $6,000 to
$7,000 below those.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Are you factoring in that all
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these other entities are going to be giving an increase this
year?
MS. HYDE: Well, funny you brought that up, because
you -- tell him about the ones that you know of.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay.
MS. HYDE: Their request.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 10 percent -- and I'll give
you just an example. 10 percent starting salaries for a
deputy would put Kerr County at 37,240-something, okay?
Gillespie County is looking at -- currently, their starting
salary right now is 38,400 and something, and they're trying
to go to 40,200-something. Kendall County is trying to go to
39,000 -- whatever. I have some of those figures. But we're
still going to be behind. But our gap -- where, if you'll
remember, years ago our gap was so wide, it was -- it was
really devastating to keep good Kerr County employees, okay?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: We closed it a lot.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: We closed it a lot.
MS. HYDE: For a while.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: For a while is right. Now
it's wide. If it doesn't happen this year, we're going to be
way wide. We're going to be at almost 10,000 difference in
deputies.
MS. HYDE: The other part to this was that all
these -- don't leave -- all these other counties are asking
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for increases either higher or at what we're asking for in
percentages. We're talking 10 percent. Some of them are
asking for 12 to 16 to 18 percent increases.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sheriff, what's the
starting salary for a K.P.D. officer?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: K.P.D. officer currently is
$37,315.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: And yours is?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: 32 --
MS. HYDE: $32,333.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, you're $5,000 down
right now.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right now.
MS. HYDE: Mm-hmm.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay. Current starting salary
for a Kendall County deputy is $36,410. Current starting
salary for a Gillespie County deputy is $38,390. And I don't
want this to focus on deputies.
MS. HYDE: No, this isn't just deputies.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: This is a scale all the way
down through their -- their counties. It's all about
equivalent. Every employee that those other counties have,
like all the rest of these department heads sitting behind
me, it's the same percentage gap. That's where we're
running, okay? And that's why all the department heads came
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together, and -- and at this point, gentlemen, we're all at
-- at the point of this year, we will try and do anything we
can do to help this Court get through our employees getting a
10 percent across-the-board raise. And I think that's where
we're at, and that's what the employees need.
JUDGE TINLEY: To include the COLA, whatever that
may work out to be, --
MS. HYDE: Yes. There is no COLA in addition.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- between 5 or 6, whatever that's
looking to be?
MS. HYDE: It's just 10.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Nothing else on top of that.
MS. HYDE: If you'd like some of those numbers, --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One question.
MS. HYDE: -- I'll give you copies of those
salaries.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: The Sheriff said nothing on
top. Are you talking about -- in response to the Judge's
question whether this would include a COLA, but you're also
telling us that there would be no other elected official
salary requests on top of this?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As far as --
MS. HYDE: What do you mean?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: What do you mean?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: If there -- if a 10 percent
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were granted, you're not -- you're telling us that there
would be no other salary increase requests for elected
officials above that number? Is that what you're telling us?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As far as our group yesterday,
and this is the group of elected officials and department
heads, that's correct.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's why I asked the
question.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That's correct.
MS. HYDE: People that put in on their request this
year -- I think everybody just about has told me or nodded,
II if they asked to -- 'cause what people were trying to do is
what I talked to y'all about. We're messing up the step and
grade, because if they move them two or three steps, then
they're getting 10 percent anyhow, and we're trying to
justify giving people raises sometimes without there being
good justification. Commissioner Letz is probably the best
one that knocks it to me every time when I ask for a merit or
increase, because he makes me think about it. But we're --
we're messing it up. So that's why this 10 percent -- if you
think of the step and grade, we're just moving them up and
down; we're not changing. We're just moving everything down.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. I think that the
prior times when we've tried to go into certain departments
and make certain moves, it messes it up, 'cause all of a
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sudden, then, that department's out of balance with the other
departments, and all of a sudden you get situations where
employees are getting paid more than their supervisors, and
it gets -- I mean, there's -- if there's a county-wide
problem, it needs to be fixed with a county-wide solution.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: But that was some good
part, about -- about if we don't -- you know, I couldn't --
you know, we always talk about, well, the City's doing this,
the City's doing that, or Boerne's doing it. I couldn't care
less what they do over there.
MS. HYDE: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: If we're losing good
employees and it's, in the long haul, costing Kerr County
taxpayers by losing these people, then that -- that has to be
addressed, and that's good information. Because you can't
expect us to sit up here and vote for a major tax increase in
this county without that kind of justification. We're not
going to do it. We're not going to just pull the number 10
out of the air and say, "Well, our employees need a salary
increase." You got to have some information. The taxpayers
deserve that information.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And I'm sure y'all are aware,
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MS. HYDE: Churn. Churn. It's churning.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Whether you call it churn or
call it opening, whatever. I've had a position I need -- you
know, that has -- has killed me on overtime, comp time,
things like that, because of people having to work to fill in
because I don't want to work -- because I can't get an
applicant. And the ones you do get have so much baggage with
them that I wouldn't ever authorize them to carry a gun on
the streets in this county.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: How about me? I'm looking
for --
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You would be one of those,
I Buster.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I see. (Laughter.)
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: But that's the issue. We're
at the point where the hill country is beautiful, but the
hill country isn't just Kerr County, and when the other
counties are doing this, we're -- we can't win that
competition.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Well, as my colleague to
the right would have noted, the beautiful hill country
doesn't pay for the milk at H.E.B.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: You're right. Exactly right.
JUDGE TINLEY: We're probably at a good break
point. Why don't we take about a 15-minute recess.
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(Recess taken from 10:44 a.m. to 11:08 a.m.)
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay, let's come back to order, if
we might. Ms. Hyde, we -- when we broke, we had you up with
personnel issues. Are there any other items you want to
bring to our attention?
MS. HYDE: When we talked about that churn rate, I
can't emphasize enough that the churn that we have, when I do
exit interviews with employees, I mean, the number was
95 percent; 95 percent of the question, "Why are you leaving
Kerr County?" "I need more money. I'm going to take
benefits, but I'm going to drive to get it," or, "I'm going
to go to someplace else that has benefits." And in our area,
like I said, there's three of us that we can look at, four of
us that, you know, we offer similar benefit plans. It's
similar work. And I looked at the banks, and I don't -- I
don't mean this to be derogatory to any office, but bank
tellers handle money. They're responsible for money.
They're responsible for laws. They're responsible for
operating equipment, computer equipment, so I used that. I
stretched as some of our administrative folks, and they're
making 15, 16 bucks an hour. So, I didn't do this lightly.
I don't like getting up here asking for money, 'cause I know
how we all look at it. I'm a taxpayer too. But on 100,000,
we're asking for 10 bucks. On 200,000, we're asking for 20.
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bucks is needed. In some areas, our lower-end employees, do
I think that that's even enough? In all honestly, no, I
don't. And I felt like our 13's should move to 14's in
positions, and that's it. But for the overall good,
10 percent, versus -- it would have been close to 14 and a
half percent for those people to go up. So, we're all
looking at ways that we can reduce the cost to everyone, but
at -- but get some good people in here and maintain them.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Are you going to address --
or are individual elected officials and department heads
going to address possible additions to staff?
MS. HYDE: In each of their budgets. When Jeannie
and I worked on trying to put numbers together, the budgets
were put in with existing personnel.
MS. HARGIS: With longevities.
MS. HYDE: With longevities. We've already got the
longevities in there. And we've got the educational
increases that people felt like they would -- they were going
to get, especially from the 5.0.
JUDGE TINLEY: Those are the ones that are put in
place because of existing policies that are mandated?
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MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. HYDE: So, that way we're not going to say it's
one number, and then, oh, we got to put longevities in and
all this. There's five people asking for five employees, and
each of those are going to do it during their own budget.
So, there are five positions that people are asking for.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay. So you're not going
to try to make a case for them?
MS. HYDE: No, sir. I'll be here with them, but
it's for them to make the case.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: And what y'all show there --
started this year asking for four deputies. Last
Commissioners Court you took care of part of the problem. We
converted, and I did away with the sergeant and made a deputy
that helped with -- a street deputy in the current budget
that you see right now. And there was prior -- and right at
the time we were working all this, you'll see that I'm still
requesting one deputy. And I'm telling you right now, with
the 10 percent, what we're trying to ask, that one deputy --
I've already talked with my administrative staff and patrol
lieutenant and them, "How can we do it?" And he said, "We
can do without it this year." And we will give up that
position -- that extra position, to help with this 10 percent
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county-wide.
JUDGE TINLEY: So, you're going to zero additional
employees?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Additional employees. Now, we
converted one this last Commissioners Court, okay? That's
there. But additional employees besides that, what I'm doing
is going to zero. And because of the medical health contract
that we're going to, where originally in the last one we were
talking about cutting four employees, now I'm also cutting
five, so I'm going to zero for the Sheriff's Office
additional employees, and cutting five personnel in the jail
that will help carry this through.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So, a net of minus five.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Huh?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Net of minus five.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Net of minus five.
MS. HYDE: The other department is Mr. Odom's, and
he has cut big time as well. Close to quarter of a million,
correct?
MS. HARGIS: Mm-hmm.
MR. ODOM: Something like that.
MS. HYDE: So, I just thought if we're going to get
it out there, get it out there at the front end.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Some of the small departments
couldn't afford to cut, because they didn't have the funds to
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cut as much as the larger ones, and that's why we tried to
I cut more.
MS. HYDE: And all the radios were brought up as
well. The radio system, because of the -- what y'all talked
about Monday. In several of the budgets, there were radios.
The constables, Animal Control, --
MS. HARGIS: Environmental.
MS. HYDE: -- Environmental. They're whacking all
of that out of their budgets as well, 'cause they had put it
in 'cause they thought we were going to have the radios just
like the 5.0. has. So, those are substantial in some of
those small offices. I think in the constables' offices, it
was four grand apiece, so there's 16,000 that's being
whacked. So, I mean, everybody's really trying.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Mine was 181,000, and that was
still in there the last I knew. We're taking it out, so I'm
trying to bring back the other information on the next
commissioners court.
JUDGE TINLEY: Comes to 36 on that, as I recall.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: My deal on that, what was
discussed -- and the next commissioners court, I'll bring
back some suggestions on either getting with Trott
Communications or what -- is that 36 goes too.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay? We do have that grant
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application in, to where if we got that, we could get by with
one or two radios in different departments and that until all
this other could take place. 'Cause it would take, you know,
probably a year to get everything else in place and that, but
we could make it to where there wouldn't be any budgetary
impact at all. That would come out.
~, MS. HYDE: Did that answer your question,
Commissioner?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yes, thank you.
MS. UECKER: Four -- four of my seven employees go
to another job at 5 o'clock.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: They go to another job at
5 o'clock?
JUDGE TINLEY: Including your chief deputy.
MS. UECKER: Including my chief deputy.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I know about her.
JUDGE TINLEY: Anything else on personnel? Other
than mention of that there are a total of five additional
employees being requested, that each department will attempt
to make their own case, are there any other reorganization
issues?
MS. HYDE: Well, of course, the Sheriff has told
you about what we've done there. This year, we've
reorganized in the County Clerk's office, so in the last two
years she's a net negative three. She's cut out her
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part-timers. In the Tax Assessor's office, she has no
part-timers. In Animal Control, we've worked on the position
schedule with them, and instead of having -- or asking for
another person, we're trying to grow that until when we need
it, then you get it. Right now, they don't need it there
except for some part-time hourly help for weekends, for
coverage. Nothing major. Environmental health, he's made do
with -- when we cut -- when we cut from last year, so his
request is not -- it's an add. It's a replacement, but it's
an add.
MS. UECKER: I've got one that's helping
collections.
MS. HYDE: We've got one that's helping
collections. And then a suggestion, and Jeannie and I have
talked about this one to ponder. The J.P.'s do have lots of
revenue that comes in. The problem that they have is, it's a
one-person office, so we've had some real difficulty this
year in coverage, and we've probably kind of covered in -- in
creative methods. So, we have looked at, would it be
possible to put in a cover person? We've got four J.P.'s.
We've got two administrative assistants or court coordinators
that get two weeks vacation each; that's eight weeks
vacation. All four of them have to go to continuing
education classes and the updates for two weeks each year,
but they split, so you've got two going and two going. So,
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that takes you up to -- another two and two is four, so eight
and four is 12. Now we got 12 weeks. If there's any
sicknesses or absentees, they do without. The problem is,
those offices end up shutting down. If the J.P. is in
something else, there's no one there to take the money. And
we've all seen some of the folks that are walking around, who
come in at 5 o'clock to pay their money on Fridays, and when
there's no one there, it makes it difficult. Or 4 o'clock.
So, we've kind of looked at, can we get a cover person that
could also help with collections and could work upstairs in
the clerk's office as well, so that they're being
dual-utilized, triple-utilized, so we don't have someone just
standing around doing nothing; they're still working on
getting money for this county. They're working in the J.P.'s
office, they're working in court collections, and they're
working upstairs. Give me the money.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: A floater.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is that one of the five?
MS. HARGIS: That's one of the five.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's one of the five.
MS. HYDE: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And if we went to a four-day
work week, there would be plenty of time for people to come
in and spend money. Yeah, okay.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Any other reorganization issues?
MS. HYDE: No, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay.
MS. HYDE: And we'll have the policy book to you
prior to budget discussions so that you can review it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Could we not designate the
offices of -- just, for instance, say Road and Bridge did not
want to do this, and the Sheriff can't do this. Could we
designate only the offices within the courthouse, or others
that wanted to be added to the four-day work week? Would
that not be possible? Rather than just saying, "Well, most
everybody wants to do it; we're just going to make it
county-wide."
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think we can do it department
by department.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'm not sure about the legalities,
but that would be the first issue I would want to have
answered, is whether or not we could do it piecemeal. I
understand Leonard's --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Obviously, we have done this
piecemeal before. Linda did it, and Leonard did it at one
time.
MS. HYDE: No, we've done it before. It's one of
those --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Another one of those issues.
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It seems to me like the elected officials have the authority
to set their own work week, basically.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think there's an Attorney
General opinion that says the elected officials can close
their offices.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's what I said, elected.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: As long as the hours -- you
know, they can't --
MS. UECKER: Forty hours.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That's why I said elected
officials, but that could also be extended to department
heads if that were to be something that would be palatable
for that.
MS. UECKER: I would have to get my District Judges
on board, you know, and not set court on whatever day the
County decides, but I think they'd go along with that.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But does that, for example,
then back up the court system even more and have a residual
effect on the Sheriff and the jail?
MS. UECKER: Right. That's a good question.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: The issue we have there -- and
i
I think, with a new District Attorney coming in, okay, if it
was going to be, like, on Friday, I don't know what day we
do. Fridays are normally 198th District Court. We would
have to get that District Attorney to reshuffle their court
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schedules throughout their district, because each county has
~, one day a week. So, if they could change our Friday with
some other county that's Tuesday, then it could be worked
out, and that's something that would just have to be set out.
MS. UECKER: And I think they would.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: That would hurt us.
MS. UECKER: I think they would.
JUDGE TINLEY: Ms. Bolin, you had a question or
comment?
MS. BOLIN: Well, a comment. When I did the
research to do my office, the four 10's, which they already
all think it's a great idea, the issue that was brought forth
was security because of our hours. If we're the only office
i
that decides to do this, then we're looking at Rusty's
I
', security person who has to maintain the courthouse.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If the -- real quick, if the
courthouse is only open four days a week, then my personnel
that's assigned to the courthouse, their hours change along
with the courthouse employees' hours, so that they work four
days a week, so that's not an issue.
MS. BOLIN: Okay. The other issue was, if you do
it department by department, then if we decide to do it and
Jannett decides not to -- the Judge brought it up. People
are going to say, "Okay, how come you're doing it and they're
not doing it?" How come I'm open 7:00 to 6:00 and she's open
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8:00 to 5:00 Monday through Friday, and I'm only open four
days?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a very good point,
and we have to keep in mind the public's access to its
facility.
~, MS. BOLIN: Exactly.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: When I say "department by
department," I think -- I mean, you have to look at those
factors, I think, with other departments that -- Maintenance
is an example that could -- they're under a different type of
a schedule and don't deal with the public. And if it works
for that department, it can be done there, and not your
department. I would agree that if -- we really almost have
to have the County Clerk and Tax Assessor probably the same
days.
MS. BOLIN: Right.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think Linda can probably be
different. She can -- most people who go to her office
probably don't really go to the other two offices. I think
the Tax Assessor and County Clerk people --
MS. UECKER: I get the bad people. The bad people.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: I think the key to this thing
is to get -- you know, decide what it's going to be, and it's
going to include everybody within the courthouse.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree. Close the doors on
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', Friday, and that's it.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: You can't just have one thing
open. I mean, it's either all or none, the way I look at it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I agree with that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: In the courthouse.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: If you don't, you're going to
cause me some overtime too, because of work schedules.
MS. UECKER: Yeah, it has to be all or none.
JUDGE TINLEY: Tim?
MR. BOLLIER: Like, in my department, there's no
way I could close -- I could close the doors in my office any
day of the week, because my department runs basically seven
days a week, with all the things that I have going on at the
Ag Barn and everything. But I can schedule around that. I
think that -- that the working four 10's is a great idea,
because I can schedule around that. But, still, I will
always have somebody here seven days a week, because I
virtually do that right now.
JUDGE TINLEY: Because you have other facilities
that --
MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: -- that you're responsible for.
MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is the primary reason for that?
MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir.
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JUDGE TINLEY: And there may be some minor items
that are -- it really might be to your benefit that you can
attend to during that one day where you're not in the way,
whereas you would be in --
MR. BOLLIER: Nobody under a --
JUDGE TINLEY: -- normal business being carried on.
MR. BOLLIER: Yes, sir. On those days when it's
closed, there's things that they can go in those offices and
do that we can't do when people are there.
MR. TROLINGER: For I.T., I attempted to do work
from home one day a week, and I alternated with Drew
Wednesday and Thursday the past three weeks to see how it
would work out. And what we found was, we end up having to
drive in, and it negates the advantage of telecommunicating
about half of the time.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, of course, the tele -- when
you raise the issue of telecommunicating, that might solve
some of the court issues, too. We can -- if we get that in
place and utilized, I think we can increase the efficiency of
the courts. I know Judge Brown is already using it, and he's
finding it quite to his liking, based on what he's told me.
And it saves personnel from -- from Rusty's operation, people
going back and forth. It saves time transporting. It saves
time, saves fuel. It just saves a whole lot of things, and
you got media hooked up and you can dispose of those cases
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and get on down the road. And if we end up with the entire
districts -- both districts wired together, you can reduce a
lot of the time on the road that those judges have to travel,
and they can be spending that time disposing of cases that
they otherwise lose a lot of time on the road. They have to,
necessarily.
MR. TROLINGER: It's all good. All good reports.
No negatives on the video teleconferencing project.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Been getting better.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Would a four-times-ten in
any way impact your statutory requirements on juvenile
hearings?
JUDGE TINLEY: We do it twice a week anyway.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: And we're in compliance doing it
twice a week, doing it Monday and Thursday.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
i
JUDGE TINLEY: Generally, if -- say, for example,
it's Monday through Thursday. If they're put in detention
on -- on Friday, for example, we normally don't see them till
Monday anyway.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Okay.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I just think one of the
exciting things about it is that it has -- it opens up more
access for the taxpaying public to be able to use, you know,
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the after-hour type thing.
MS. UECKER: Yeah. That's one thing I discovered,
that about 30 percent of our customers were coming after
5 o'clock.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Sure.
MS. UECKER: They realized that they could come in
after they got off of work. Of course, then we got a lot of
complaints because -- "Well, I came here to pay my taxes too,
and they're not open."
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah. Yeah.
MS. UECKER: You know.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: We can throw rocks at her
all day.
MS. UECKER: I know.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: It's hard to conduct business,
period, if you're working 8:00 to 5:00.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: It is. It is.
MS. HYDE: Right.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And that opens up the
access. But I'd like to see Commissioner Williams contact
his -- his good buddy down at Bexar County, Commissioner
Larson or whoever down there, that they're going through this
same thing, only they're way down the road compared to us. I
mean, they're literally thinking about adopting it --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll call him.
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COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: -- very soon, and kind of
just see what the pitfalls are. And they would have the
same -- same pitfalls that we would.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Sure. Larger scale.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Larger scale.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I'll do that.
MS. BOLIN: I have one other comment.
JUDGE TINLEY: I'd really be interested in getting
feedback from our public. I realize a lot of our citizens
are retired or semi-retired, and they can come down here and
transact business during the middle of the day. I -- I'd
like their -- I'd like their input, but I'd particularly like
input from folks that work an average work day -- 9:00 to
5:00, 8:00 to 5:00 -- about how that would suit them. I'd
really hope to receive as much input as we could.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree.
JUDGE TINLEY: Maybe we can get that feedback.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We haven't touched on this,
but are we talking about a 10-hour work day that would be
from 7 o'clock to noon, an hour break, and then 1:00 to 6:00?
Is that what we're talking about? Or are we talking about --
MS. UECKER: 7:00 to 6:00.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: 7:00 to 6:00.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: 7 a.m. to 12:00, 1:00 to
6:00?
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MS. UECKER: Another thing, I noticed that a lot of
the retired folks liked it, 'cause some of them had to wait
for the daughter to get off so they could come pick her up
and bring her to come do business. You know, so the retired
folks actually liked it as well.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yeah.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it -- I'd be interested
to hear feedback, whether you want to go 7:00 to 6:00 or 8:00
to 7:00.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah. Let's examine it.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: For a lot of people, myself
included, it's pretty darn hard to be anywhere at 7 o'clock,
cause I live so far away, I got to get up at 4 o'clock in the
morning if I had to.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: You could always move close
to town.
MS. HYDE: A lot of the employees have children.
You can get the help after work, but getting them to
school -- taking them to school an hour and a half early,
there's nowhere to drop them. So sometimes, if you back it
up, then they'll have -- they'll have the ability to get
their children to school, and they can have coverage in the
afternoons.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's the kind of feedback that we
need to receive from the public, from all segments of the
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public.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: So, if you do a story -- if
you do a story on it, put be sure to put the Judge's home
telephone number in there. (Laughter.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: So that he can get the
information, directly.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Directly.
~, MS. BOLIN: I have one other comment on that. The
Gregg County Tax Assessor did the 7:00 to 6:00, closed on
Fridays. His biggest problem was that he did not tell
anybody. He didn't tell Commissioners Court, he didn't tell
the news media. He let no one know.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is he still living in that same
town?
MS. BOLIN: Barely. But that, I think, is going to
be a big key, is a lot of public information if we decide to
do this.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what we're doing
right here.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It's necessary.
MS. BOLIN: It is very necessary.
MS. ROMAN: I think it would benefit my department
greatly to go from actually 8:00 to 7:00, because the
majority of the public knows that we're only working 8:00 to
5:00, and they always -- most of the problems that we're
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dealing with right now are after 5:00. So --
COMMISSIONER LETZ: A lot of people.
MS. ROMAN: -- there's been several times that Marc
and I have come in at 10:00 and worked -- you know, worked
till 7:00, just to issue citations and catch people's dogs
', running loose.
JUDGE TINLEY: You're working those hours anyway,
is what you're telling me, for the most part.
MS. ROMAN: Right. Right, a lot of times we do.
Plus a lot -- the majority of the working class people can't
come in to reclaim their animals, because we're closed at
5:00. So, I think this would work great for my department.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: But, as department heads
and elected officials poll their employee groups on this
issue, --
MS. ROMAN: Absolutely.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: -- they need to deal with
the operational times, because a lot of people are going to
say, "Well, I don't want to work till 7 o'clock at night."
MS. ROMAN: We've discussed it a little bit in my
department, and there's only one employee that has an issue
with her day care. But she can work it out to where her
parents can take the -- pick the child up at 5:00 and keep
the child for a couple of hours. But day care doesn't open
until 8 o'clock, so that's one of those issues that it --
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there was no way she could work it to be at work at 7:00.
So, for my department, it would have to, you know, work from
I
'~~ 8:00 to --
JUDGE TINLEY: 7:00.
MS. HYDE: We just don't want it to be where we end
up having to baby-sit -- baby-sit -- or for the courthouse to
have a lot of children in it because our employees have
nowhere to put them. That's one of the policies that's
really changed in the policy book. I mean, it's not that we
don't love children, but -- but we can't have the children in
the courthouse to be baby-sat during normal working hours.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And if you -- if you're
talking about --
MR. BOLLIER: You could open a day care; Jody could
take care of them there in the judge's office.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: You have to bring your own
diapers, though. We don't provide diapers. The -- but if
you're talking about -- if you're cutting off a day to save
some gasoline money on that -- just that one day, then you
turn around and spend more than that on day care, you know,
golly, that's defeating the purpose and actually costing
more.
MS. HYDE: Right. And that's why, when y'all asked
everyone to ask their folks, although a lot of people are
going to be very excited about it, please listen to those
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that don't, because they're telling you what the problems
I are. So --
I COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Get them to the Judge.
MS. DECKER: I think the --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: He'll fix dinner for them.
MS. DECKER: I think the Commissioners ought to
take turns staying here and baby-sitting the kids.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That did it. It's over.
(Laughter.) We're still with the five days.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That took care of that.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Actually, I thought we'd send
them over to your house so you could go home early and take
care of them.
MS. DECKER: Okay. That's -- hey, that's a deal.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Then you can fix dinner for
all of them.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: That would be a subsidy to
your income.
MS. DECKER: There you go. One thing I did was, I
did not open the office until 8 o'clock, because we didn't
have anybody coming in early anyway. They did come in after.
But we used that hour to do catch-up work from the day
before, or prepare for court without customers and phones. I
told them, "Don't answer the phones till 8 o'clock." You
know, "Just do what you got to do." And, you know, it -- it
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seemed to really help productivity.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's a good suggestion.
MS. DECKER: We didn't open until 8:00.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Is that it for the personnel
issues?
MS. HYDE: Unless y'all have any questions.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Everybody's going to be
polling their department personnel, and we're going to learn
all sorts of things. Good. And we're going to get feedback
I from the public, with assistance from the media, hopefully.
We'll see where that goes. Looks like City/County joint
operations is the remaining issue. As the members of the
Court know, at the Court's direction, I did send a
communication over to the City a little less than a month --
about a month ago, and I've gotten no formal response. I
have been told that the matter is to be put on the agenda for
the 22nd of this month.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: For them, you mean?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yes, on the City Council's -- the
City Council's agenda for the 22nd.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What's going to be put on
the agenda?
JUDGE TINLEY: The issue of City/County joint
operations funding.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Oh.
JUDGE TINLEY: That's what I'm told. Now, what
actually ends up on the agenda, I don't know. For budgeting
purposes, I'm not sure. You know, I'm open to listening to
anything, but it seems to me like we need to at least
tentatively plug in what we communicated to the City a month
ago and see how that develops.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Looks like we got 188,334
in there now.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: For the airport.
JUDGE TINLEY: Well, I don't --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I'm under City/County,
but that is only airport?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: That is the airport.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That is only airport.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Not enough for everything.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Judge, in that note,
Commissioner Letz and I have -- have indicated -- he's asked
by e-mail to the Mayor -- we really believe we have a need
for two-on-two before we have our five-on-five. We want to
be certain that we have an agreement -- new governance
agreement on the airport, because if we don't, we have to
hack that out.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I agree with that, too.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well, obviously, I agree with
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', it, but --
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: I don't know that y'all are
ever going to get there.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I guess the problem that I
see -- and maybe this can be relayed to the City. You know,
we only have two hours allotted for our joint meeting, and
usually that's pretty much a -- you know, a kind of a -- not
a whole lot of nuts and bolts going into these details. And
it appears to me that the City wants to have a nuts-and-bolts
meeting with everyone in attendance, including the Airport
Board, and I just don't see how that's going to work very
efficiently. I think -- I really need to narrow down what
that meeting on August 6th is -- I think August -- is that
~~ the date?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: August 6th.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think it's August 6th.
JUDGE TINLEY: I was not aware that we had even
firmed up a date yet.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That means two of us,
Judge.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: From 12:00 to 2:00, Judge.
JUDGE TINLEY: We have rolled so many around
I that --
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: August 6th.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 12:00 to 2:00, and we're buying
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lunch.
MS. HARGIS: We're buying lunch?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I know you got Sheriff's
', Office and jail.
(Discussion off the record.)
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: What time?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: 12:00 to 2:00. But I just
think that, you know, for us -- you know, having two hours,
eating, practicality says we're not going to have a whole lot
of nuts-and-bolts time. We'd better have it pretty much --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: It should be posted as 12:00
until whenever. Leave it open-ended.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. But either way, I mean,
I think that -- I just think it's very hard to do what the
City is asking, to go through all of these things in detail
with our full board, their full board, and then for the --
related to the airport, they want the Airport Board to be
there in their entirety.
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: Unless they just want to
adopt whatever we propose.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well --
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: And that would be very
simple. We could eat and go home.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Go home.
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COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: I don't see any particular
i reason for the Airport Board to monitor our joint meeting if
we're talking about all of the various operations. If we
have a governance agreement in place, then that really takes
care of the Airport Board's concerns in terms of operation.
The funding of it, that's for us to determine. But it's a
foregone conclusion we're going to fund it. Now, one other
suggestion that I think of in terms of the governance
agreement to move this thing along, Judge, would be in our
joint meeting on August 6th, we could have -- if we have a
governance agreement -- tentative agreement, we could have an
action item on the agenda on August 6th with both of them
there to approve it and get it done, and get it off the
table.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I agree. I mean, the -- I
wasn't aware that the Airport Board -- I was there on Monday,
but they're under the impression that they're going to attend
', meeting on the 6th, their full board. The City has invited
them.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: The library?
COMMISSIONER LETZ: Airport Board.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Airport Board. Is this a
City/County meeting, or is this a damn airport meeting?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: It sounds like somebody's
trying to turn it into the latter.
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: All of the above.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: That's what it sounds like
to me. Seriously, I don't know what y'all are talking about.
Is that a City Council meeting? It is a Commissioners
Court/City Council meeting.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I believe the City has
invited the Airport Board to attend, as I understand it. I
mean, maybe I'm wrong.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: All the more reason why we
should have our two-on-two, get good, tentative agreements
and have an action item to approve the governance agreement
by both bodies and say, "Good-bye, Airport Board; we'll talk
about funding later."
JUDGE TINLEY: I was under the impression that the
joint meeting for five-on-five was to determine to make
funding decisions or try and reach funding agreements with
respect to the joint operations. Maybe I missed something,
but that was -- that was my sense of it.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: That's what I thought, too.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I think the -- in my
conversation with the -- brief conversation with the City
Manager, he's unclear as well as to what the desires of City
Council is at that meeting. That's what he told me.
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Wait a minute, now. Let me
ask a goofy question. Are we hosting it?
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COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yes.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Where?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: And the City's telling us
who's going to be there? Y'all go have fun. I'm not going
to go to something like that.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: But I think what would be
helpful is if we could maybe ask City Council to clarify what
they want at their next meeting -- council meeting, what
their intent is for the joint meeting, 'cause I think there's
some confusion at the moment. And I think it should be, just
like you said earlier, to look at our joint operations and
funding of those, and if we have any issues after we've
already talked about them, we need to settle them.
JUDGE TINLEY: Let me see what I can develop on
that. And I was encouraged by the discussions that have been
taking place with regard to the airport non-funding issues.
Continue to work on them, see what develops, and -- and see
where that leads.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: I have not talked to -- I sent
an e-mail.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Well, Judge, with that, are
you still going to leave the budget workshop that you have
set for August 6th?
JUDGE TINLEY: Yep.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay.
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JUDGE TINLEY: Yeah. It's still in place for
9 o'clock on the 6th.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Okay.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Don't be late, Sheriff.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I won't be.
JUDGE TINLEY: I think you're up that day, aren't
you?
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All three budgets.
JUDGE TINLEY: Mm-hmm.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: I think y'all know from past
discussions where we're going to be.
JUDGE TINLEY: You're kind of at the end of the --
at the tail end of things. And, of course, when you get
there, there ain't no money left.
COMMISSIONER LETZ: You get what's left.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: All I'm hoping that is still
there at that time is the 10 percent county-wide raise.
We'll make everything else work.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. What else do we got on the
schedule for today?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: One other quick issue.
Commissioner Oehler and I have been talking with -- working
with Bill Amerine at 911, as well as the Sheriff, with
respect to this reverse notification system, and Amerine
was -- Mr. Amerine was going to be here, but apparently he's
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109
not going to make it today. So, at some point in time, we
have to crank that in, figure out if we can do it, should do
it, who's going to do it, what it's going to cost.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Because I have not plugged in
any figures.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: No, I know you haven't. I
basically have been trying to work out the numbers with
Amerine, and he in turn with the various contractors.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Right.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Is the County Attorney
still in the room, or has he left?
COMMISSIONER OEHLER: He left.
SHERIFF HIERHOLZER: Stepped out.
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: We have an issue that needs
to be satisfied with respect to acquiring the service. Do we
have to go to bid for that, or as the sole source -- sole
source provider -- it's probably not a sole source provider,
so we probably have to put an RFQ out for proposals -- an
RFP. But we need to know if we're going to do it, have a
benchmark or a ballpark figure.
it COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: What are you talking about?
~I
~ Are you talking about the notification?
COMMISSIONER WILLIAMS: Yeah, the reverse
notification, the WARN system.
JUDGE TINLEY: Okay. Have we thrashed and chopped
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at everything on the schedule for today?
COMMISSIONER BALDWIN: Yes, sir.
JUDGE TINLEY: Is that it? We'll be adjourned.
(Budget workshop adjourned at 11:43 a.m.)
STATE OF TEXAS ~
COUNTY OF KERR ~
The above and foregoing is a true and complete
transcription of my stenotype notes taken in my capacity as
County Clerk of the Commissioners Court of Kerr County,
Texas, at the time and place heretofore set forth.
DATED at Kerrville, Texas, this 24th day of July, 2008.
JANNETT PIEPER, Kerr County Clerk
B Y : -i- ~~-----
Kathy Bani Deputy County Clerk
Certified Shorthand Reporter
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