1 1 2 3 KERR COUNTY COMMISSIONERS' COURT 4 Special Session 5 Monday, August 2, 2021 6 2:00 p.m. 7 Commissioners' Courtroom 8 Kerr County Courthouse 9 Kerrville, Texas 78028 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 PRESENT: ROB KELLY, Kerr County Judge HARLEY BELEW, Commissioner Precinct 1 24 JONATHAN LETZ, Commissioner Precinct 3 DON HARRIS, Commissioner Precinct 4 25 2 1 I-N-D-E-X 2 NO. PAGE 3 1.1 Consider, discuss and take appropriate 3 action to approve Proposed Salary Increases 4 for Elected County and Precinct Officials for Kerr County FY 2021-2022, and authorize 5 County Clerk to publish same. 6 1.2 Consider, discuss and take appropriate 3 action to approve the base salaries for 7 elected officials for FY 2021-2022. 8 1.3 Consider, discuss and take appropriate 6 action to approve the payroll market 9 adjustment plan policy. 10 2.1a Consider, discuss and take appropriate 11 action to approve the compensation study 11 salary recommendations. 12 *** Adjournment. 14 13 *** Reporter's Certificate. 15 14 * * * * * * 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 3 1 JUDGE KELLY: Kerr County Commissioner Court 2 will come to order for a Special Commissioners' Meeting 3 on August 2, 2021, and it is 2:25 in the afternoon. 4 And on the consideration agenda item 1.1 is 5 to consider, discuss and take appropriate action to 6 approve proposed salary increases for elected County and 7 Precinct Officials for Kerr County FY 2021-2022, and 8 authorize County Clerk to publish same. James Robles. 9 MR. ROBLES: Yes. Each of you have a copy 10 of the proposed salaries for elected officials. We've 11 added a new column. The second column to the right this 12 year is to address the longevity with our new policy 13 this Court passed. Do you have any questions? 14 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Move for approval for 15 the proposed salaries for elected officials. 16 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 17 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 18 Commissioner Letz, second by Commissioner Harris to 19 approve the proposed salaries for elected officials for 20 FY 2021-2022. Any discussion? Those in favor raise 21 your hand. Four zero unanimous. 22 Next item is 1.2 consider, discuss and take 23 appropriate action to approve the base salaries for 24 elected officials for FY 2021-2022. Miss Doss. 25 MRS. DOSS: Yes, Sir. What you have in your 4 1 packet is the baseline schedule for elected officials. 2 It includes 1.5 percent wage adjustment. 3 JUDGE KELLY: And this is to all Kerr County 4 employees. 5 MRS. DOSS: Yes. 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I move we approve the 7 base salary for all elected officials. 8 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Second. 9 JUDGE KELLY: Motion's been made by 10 Commissioner Letz, second by Commissioner Harris to 11 approve the base salaries for the elected officials for 12 FY 2021-2022. Any discussion? 13 COMMISSIONER BELEW: This is basically a new 14 wording for COLA raise, or what is it? What's the 15 difference? 16 JUDGE KELLY: We call it a wage adjustment 17 instead of a COLA. 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: We changed the wording. 19 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: But you're right. 20 COMMISSIONER BELEW: So everybody knows what 21 this is. 22 JUDGE KELLY: Across the board. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But just a brief 24 informational item for the public is that the reason 25 these salaries are different from the ones we had 5 1 proposed is that we found out a number of years ago, 2 several years ago, that all elected officials must be 3 treated the same as other employees. We can't have one 4 set of -- and prior to -- ten years or so or longer 5 where employees got longevity and other benefits that 6 elected officials didn't get, and that was brought to 7 the Attorney General's -- 8 JUDGE KELLY: Yeah, I think the Attorney 9 General. 10 MRS. STEBBINS: Yes, Sir. 11 COMMISSIONER LETZ: And Attorney General 12 says that is against the law, that all -- whether you're 13 elected or a regular employee, you'll be treated the 14 same way. So because of that Attorney General Opinion, 15 since that time, the salary starts getting out of whack 16 because elected official's now getting longevity. 17 JUDGE KELLY: So we were ordered to do this. 18 COMMISSIONER LETZ: But that's why the 19 salaries -- the different Commissioners get different 20 salaries, and things are -- the longer time goes by, the 21 further some of the salaries get apart. 22 And base salaries if one of the new elected 23 officials comes in one of these departments, they start 24 at that salary. And that's the reason for the base 25 salaries. So hope I didn't confuse people more. 6 1 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: You confused me before 2 I took office because I thought well, that's what the 3 salary would be and then it was lower, but now I 4 understand. I had to get in here and figure out what 5 happened. Nobody wants me here. 6 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Any other discussion? 7 Those in favor raise their hand. Unanimous. Opposed? 8 Unanimous four zero. 9 Item 1.3 consider, discuss and take 10 appropriate action to approve the payroll market 11 adjustment plan policy. Miss Doss. 12 MRS. DOSS: Yes, Sir. This is -- this has 13 been renamed as well. This was based on our old 14 longevity plan, and now referred to as a market 15 adjustment plan. 16 The changes that have been made to the prior 17 policy are that any new hire -- hires this October first 18 of 2021 or after will wait two years before they get 19 their first -- not longevity, but market adjustment 20 increase. 21 Anyone hired 9-30 or before will have to 22 just wait the one year. And the second to the last 23 paragraph, I had added this for Commissioner Letz, and 24 that was just something that was -- y'all were going to 25 discuss potentially. 7 1 COMMISSIONER LETZ: That paragraph would 2 read the Commissioners' Court may approve a request from 3 elected officials or department head to move salary 4 upward or downwards based on employee performance. 5 I added this based on Miss Wilke, the DA, 6 basic request. She has done this frequently -- I won't 7 say frequently; she's done this occasionally. And you 8 know, and I think I do agree that elected officials 9 should have and department heads should have some 10 ability to move salaries. She's the only one that I'm 11 aware that did that, ever lowered a salary to one of her 12 employees. But just the last -- 13 JUDGE KELLY: Well and -- excuse me. My 14 recollection was that the boiler plate language goes in 15 at the beginning of the budget. And we say it's boiler 16 plate, it's binding, it's authoritative but it's 17 standard. 18 And we're referring specifically to what the 19 216th offices -- District Attorney's Office has done. 20 It says it can be decreased. It did not say it could be 21 increased. It was only decreased. And that was part of 22 the problem with the little dust up we had earlier in 23 the year when she had wanted to bring in somebody to 24 replace one of her assistant DA's and wanted to pay them 25 more than what was in the position schedule. And she 8 1 had done that by decreasing that former employee's -- 2 and part of the problem was that we can't increase that 3 position once we establish it this year in this budget 4 process. Once it goes into that position schedule, 5 that's what it is. 6 And what this does is allow it to not only 7 go down, but to go up. And I'm really not in favor of 8 being able to complete -- to have any of the department 9 heads or elected officials to be able to arbitrarily 10 increase and decrease an employee's value during the 11 year. 12 I think it should be reviewed once a year 13 like it has been. And you've done a very thorough job 14 of doing it, and I'm pleased with it. But at the same 15 token, I don't want to leave here and not know what 16 everybody else is going to do out there because they can 17 raise or lower people's salaries based on performance. 18 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Hopefully, everybody 19 has seen what can happen, and will avoid that in the 20 future. 21 JUDGE KELLY: Well, by putting this language 22 in there it's an invitation for mischief. What I want 23 to do is not put this language in there, and do the 24 annual performance review, and reflect that in what we 25 do in this budget process. 9 1 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I think if you burn 2 your hand on the stove -- 3 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I'm fine either way, you 4 know. Just trying to accommodate what Miss -- what was 5 done by the 216th DA. 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Do we have to do it or 7 not? You've said it's binding, so -- 8 JUDGE KELLY: If we put this language in 9 this policy, it is binding. If we don't put this 10 language in this policy, then what will go into the 11 budget is we can decrease, but you can't increase. 12 In other words, if somebody's doing very 13 badly, then that department head or elected official can 14 do something about that. But as far as when people do 15 things that would otherwise merit a grade and step 16 increase, that's something that we do during the budget 17 process annually every year, and I want to keep it that 18 way. 19 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Yeah, I would say I'll 20 agree with that. 21 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Take out that paragraph. 22 MRS. DOSS: Okay. I'll take that out. 23 JUDGE KELLY: We need to have a motion -- 24 I'll make a motion that we take that out. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Before you amend it 10 1 though, in the last paragraph there's a typo. After the 2 word effective, it says "the". I think that "the" 3 should be deleted. 4 COMMISSIONER BELEW: I don't have it in 5 front of me, so -- 6 JUDGE KELLY: So no action necessary. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Well with that, you 8 know, I'll make a motion to approve the policy as 9 amended. And the amendment is get rid of the "the" and 10 get rid of the second to last paragraph. 11 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: I thought the Judge 12 had made a motion. What do you got? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Okay, I'll second. 14 MRS. DOWDY: Okay. Judge made the motion 15 and Letz seconded. 16 JUDGE KELLY: I made the motion and 17 Commissioner Letz seconded. Any other discussion? 18 Those in favor raise your hand. Unanimous, four zero. 19 MRS. DOSS: Thank you. 20 JUDGE KELLY: Okay. Now, do we need an 21 executive session today? 22 MRS. DOSS: I believe so. 23 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Do we want to go over 24 all these final changes, all the changes that came out 25 of the salary study? 11 1 JUDGE KELLY: What I'm looking at here, I've 2 run out of action items on my agenda at 1.3. We've got 3 an executive session to consider, discuss and take 4 appropriate action to approve the compensation study 5 salary recommendations. That salary study 6 recommendation. 7 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Which is this sheet. 8 JUDGE KELLY: That's correct. So we don't 9 have anything on the agenda to take action on after we 10 come out of executive session. 11 MRS. GRINSTEAD: It's on the addendum. 12 JUDGE KELLY: It is? 13 COMMISSIONER LETZ: It says consider, 14 discuss and take appropriate action to approve. 15 JUDGE KELLY: So these are all the salary 16 study recommendations? 17 COMMISSIONER LETZ: These are the ones that 18 we've adjusted a little bit. What the changes were we 19 had made some adjustments at a previous executive 20 session, and then we have moved everyone that -- we had 21 some employees that were not on a step and grade, and 22 they were moved to a step and grade. 23 JUDGE KELLY: That's the free range or 24 whatever the word for it. 25 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Yeah. So we now have 12 1 exempt employees, and we have step and grade employees. 2 There's only two categories. 3 (Mrs. Doss passing documents out.) 4 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: Well, do we need to go 5 into -- 6 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I don't think we need 7 executive session. 8 COMMISSIONER HARRIS: We got a change. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: There's one minor change 10 that was just handed out. It's a couple of hundred 11 dollars on one employee. And that change was moving 12 someone from a not step and grade to a step and grade 13 and tried to fit them into the right spot. 14 And the total amount of all these changes is 15 $154,024. No one's salary was reduced. And based on 16 the salary survey, a number were increased. 17 COMMISSIONER BELEW: That increases the 18 budget by that much? 19 COMMISSIONER LETZ: Right. And this is 20 built into the budget, the current budget. 21 JUDGE KELLY: And to refresh everybody's 22 mind, what we started to do over a year ago, we got it 23 completed this year, was to conduct a salary study 24 because we didn't know if our salaries were competitive. 25 And we've conducted the salary study to find 13 1 out. And the Public Sector is the one that did the 2 study for us, right? And they came back with a series 3 of recommendations. They reviewed everybody with the 4 County, virtually everybody with the County, and came 5 back with recommendations. 6 And those recommendations are what we're 7 approving here today. And what we found out was that 8 because of the old longevity plan that we had that is 9 now our market adjustment plan. It was keeping us 10 competitive in the marketplace. 11 So what we wanted to do was get everybody to 12 a competitive place with their -- salary-wise, grade and 13 step, and we made those adjustments in order to do that. 14 But that's what we're actually incorporating here. 15 We're not reading off people's names in 16 public and tell what everybody's got. But we do have a 17 schedule here based on the recommendation from Public 18 Sector, that these would keep our employees in 19 competitive market positions. And that's what we found 20 and that's what we're about to approve. 21 Is there a motion? 22 COMMISSIONER LETZ: I make a motion to 23 approve the compensation study salary recommendations. 24 COMMISSIONER BELEW: Second. 25 JUDGE KELLY: Motion be made by Commissioner 14 1 Letz,second by Commissioner Belew to approve the salary 2 study recommendations. Any other discussion? Those in 3 favor raise their hand. Unanimous four zero. 4 I don't think we have anything else on the 5 agenda. 6 COMMISSIONER BELEW: What about -- did we do 7 1.4 or 5, isn't that today? 8 JUDGE KELLY: We passed that one. 9 COMMISSIONER LETZ: We'll do them Monday. 10 JUDGE KELLY: So with that, Court will be 11 adjourned. 12 * * * * * * 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 15 1 STATE OF TEXAS * 2 COUNTY OF KERR * 3 I, DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD, Certified Shorthand 4 Reporter in and for the State of Texas, and Official 5 Court Reporter in and for Kerr County, do hereby certify 6 that the above and foregoing pages contain and comprise 7 a true and correct transcription of the proceedings had 8 in the above-entitled Special Commissioners' Court. 9 Dated this the 6th day of August, A.D. 2021. 10 11 /s/DEBRA ELLEN GIFFORD Certified Shorthand Reporter 12 No. 953 Expiration Date 04/30/2023 13 * * * * * * 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25