Gonzales County commissioners lay down law on department raises

Gonzales County commissioners discussed giving a $1.50 per hour raise — $3,120 per year — across the board to all county employees during a budget session Monday, July 31, at the Courthouse.

Commissioners also talked about what they could do to bring the salaries of the constables and JPs up to be more in line with other elected officials, including a possible $1 per hour raise, or an extra $2,080. And they spoke about possibly raising the salary of the lead assistant county attorney to $110,000 and the salary for the second slot to $100,000 in order to possibly attract a candidate to help with a backlog of cases in that department. 

While the court did not make any formal decisions on any of those issues, they did pass an edict unanimously that if an employee is not receiving the full budgeted salary amount for their position — and that employee has been with the county at least one year and is not on disciplinary action — then no raises will be given to anyone in that employee’s department.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Donnie Brzozowski asked for clarification from Judge Pat Davis, who made the motion, about what the intent was.

“If I had four people working for me and three of them are making $25 an hour and I’ve got one who is making $22 an hour and he is not on disciplinary action and he’s been there a year, but that’s all I want to pay him right now, if I don’t pay him that $25 per hour, then my department isn’t going to get the raise?” Brzozowski asked.

“Let's just say I don't think he's as good as the other employees and I'm not gonna give him that $25, We're giving him 22,” he added. “Does that mean the whole department — if I don't give him that raise, because I'm feeling that way since I'm the head of the department — the whole department doesn’t get the raise?”

“If the reason you're paying $22 is because he's not up to par and he ain't quite where he needs to be, then that's fine. But if you don't have any problem with your employee and he’s still not being paid the full amount, then, yes, that's what I'm saying,” Davis replied.

Brzozowski sought advice from County Attorney Paul Watkins about whether the court could withhold a raise to an entire department because a department head is not paying employees a full budgeted salary.

“The issue is the department head has the right to determine how much they pay, but the commisisoners get to determine how much the budget is going to be,” Watkins said. “You’re using one against the other.”

“What if we just didn’t budget for that person and he just gets the money he’s been paying him?” Brzozowski asked.

“I don’t think so, because then you are identifying an individual and that’s a department head’s authority (to decide what to pay them),” Watkins responded. “If you affect the budget for the entire department, then I think you have the authority to do that.”

“If they're not on any type of disciplinary action through you, as the elected official, and they've been with us at least over a year, then they should be entitled to what they make, because if you don't want that employee, they should be gone,” Davis added.

Watkins said the commissioners cannot adjust a salary for an individual employee, either up or down, because they lack the authority to override another elected official or department head’s authority.

“You can say we’re not going to give you any more money for the department,” Watkins said. “If you could go in and order the department head to pay that amount, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. What you can do is say we’re not giving any raises at all.

“You can't micromanage the department. You can't come into Paul's office and say ‘You're not paying so and so enough money and they should be getting the max. You can’t do that. If you wanted to incentivize me to do that, one of the ways to do that is to affec my budget because you do have the authority to do that.”

Watkins questioned why a department head would be keeping an employee at a lower salary beyond a probationary period if they were unhappy with the work being performed by the employee in the first place. 

“In my department, we do a 90-day probationary period,” Watkins said. “At the end of 90 days, you come in and sit at our meeting and either get your job or you don’t. I had a gentleman that came in and on the 90th day he was just fine, but on the 93rd day, he was fired because he changed in three days.”

Davis noted that the county pays its employees “very well and you have the option to hire the best person for that amount of money.”

“If they're not doing that good of a job, get somebody else,” Davis said. “But there's a lot of individuals within our departments that have worked here for a long time and they’re still not getting paid the full amount and then we have some elected officials come in and say they want a raise. Well, you have the opportunity to give this employee some more money and you haven’t given it to him first.”

Precinct 4 Commissioner Collie Boatright said the court sets budgets based upon what it expects expenditures to be and when employees are not paid the full salary, it impacts the budgeting process.

Precinct 3 Commissioner Kevin La Fleur asked “who is going to be the shepherd of this?” to which Brzozowski said Auditor Becky Weston would have to determine who is in compliance and who is not and keep commissioners abreast of the reason if an employee is not receiving the full salary.

Watkins also said department heads should have to “justify” what they are paying their employees.

“If you were to say to a jury, ‘This person never did quite meet my standards but I never made a decision on them,’ then that’s just discrimination,” Watkins said.

None of the commissioners singled out a particular department or department head in their discussions.