Commissioners court discusses employee compensation during workshop

The Hays County Commissioners Court held a workshop and discussion during Tuesday's meeting to review Hays County's compensation practices and approaches going forward. 

During the workshop, Director of Human Resources Shari Miller reported that the county is preparing to put together the specs for an RFP request for a compensation study. Miller also mentioned that previously, the county's  job analysis, job descriptions, compensation studies and market studies have all been done internally. 

“About a third of the jobs that we have posted right now, we have 10 or more applicants and when you have multiple vacancies in your department, which I personally don't experience, I have one vacancy right now, really good applicants, thankfully. It's frustrating and scary to think that your jobs are going to be vacant for a long time,” Miller said. 

Following Miller’s comments, Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra suggested that surveys be created for county employees to voice their concerns and assess their satisfaction with the job.

To that point, Precinct 2 Commissioner Mark Jones suggested that the survey be done independently by another company and brought up how the county is losing employees to other counties and businesses that can pay them more. 

“Part of the independent studies, you know, where are they going? The ones that leave us, what is the market rate out there? Not just in government jobs, but in jobs in general that these same people would qualify for,” Jones said. “I appreciate the work you've done, but I think what I'm looking for is somebody from outside coming in, looking at our structure.” 

Becerra added that employees not only move counties, but also other departments within the county and the city. Precinct 1 Commissioner Debbie Gonzales Ingalsbe questioned if the study should look at market employers and asked about jobs that are currently not matched in the market. 

“There are positions that Hays County has established that are not considered benchmark positions, which is a position that is similar across the entities that you are benchmarking against. So, every county has deputy clerks in their tax offices, and in their clerk's offices, so the deputy clerk positions would be a benchmark position.” Miller said. 

She went on to explain that in the benchmarking process, about a third of the positions are identified as benchmark positions.

“You identify them from each of — whatever your pay system is, you have grades or groups or job families, you make sure you have representation from each of that organizational structure,” said Miller, adding that about a third of the county’s positions are benchmarked, meaning salary data from the benchmark agencies and entities are received every year. 

“My idea, if I can share, is that this outside entity would help us verify or identify benchmark entities, including private employers, just along with discussions of gaining that information from our department heads and elected officials,” Miller said. “I would encourage them to interact with all of our department heads and elected officials. Everyone has their own different story and there’s 45 of us with different stories.” 

Miller also suggested that the entity look at what has been done in the past versus where they should be looking, where the county is losing employees to and where they are getting employees from. 

The commissioners agreed to have a comprehensive study that includes benefits analysis. 

Jones then asked if any departments are at a crisis point in terms of hiring positions to which Transportation Directory, Jerry Borcherding answered  “As far as the transportation department is concerned, we're at a critical point right now, and we were hoping for some specific action for transportation to happen quickly. This sounds like a long range project to study salaries, and we're hurting right now.” 

To this, Miller along with the commissioners agreed that getting to work on this project as soon and as quickly as possible would be beneficial. 

“One of the things that I didn't hear mentioned today, that is of concern to me, and every department we have, is not a mandated progression schedule, but some type of progression schedule, when we look at these positions, especially those that are customer service-oriented,” Precinct 4 Commissioner Walt Smith said. 

Smith talked about the importance of having and maintaining employees in those positions and establishing an employee satisfaction and progression plan for individuals in those departments. 

The final two points Miller brought up to the court were department staffing in terms of number of positions and organizational structure, asking if that would be included in the study, to which the court unanimously agreed that it should be. 

The final point discussed was salary exceptions and an analysis of how they have been handled by the county. The commissioners agreed to add that as well, with the compensation package being the first priority. 

Hays County Assistant County Auditor Vickie Dorsett reported that as of September 2021, there were 450 positions under the 45th percentile and 200 positions that have at least 4 years of service that are less than the 50th percentile. This information was previously requested by Ingalsbe. 

To end the discussion, Auditor, Marisol Villarreal-Alonzo made a comment, “With the court's action today from item number 34, it did create an internal equity, within my office, the one we had spoke about before we have purchasing specialist and accounts payable auditors who are making $36,000 and we're bringing in someone in at 54,000 and it does create disheartened employees, who are honest with me and tell me that they will be looking for other jobs,” Villarreal said. “And so my request is that the commissioners look at those types of instances, the internal equity is what is most important right now to some of these employees making decisions whether to stay or leave.” 

For the complete workshop and agenda, visit https://hayscountytx.com/commissioners-court/court-video/.