Judge Offers Surprising Pay Raise Proposal

Fayette County Commissioners Court considered raises for County employees during their last budget workshop on Thursday, July 27.

Commissioners had been considering a five percent raise for most County employees and a seven percent raise for Fayette County EMS and the Sheriff’s Office personnel. After hearing from department leaders at the meeting last Thursday, County Judge Dan Mueller proposed a 10 percent raise for the EMS and Sheriff’s Office.

“We have a long way to go in this budget process, but I think I speak for everyone on the Court when I say we are well aware that we have good employees up and down, all departments throughout the county,” Mueller said at the start of the budget workshop. “We’re also well aware that its difficult at times to keep good employees.”

Sheriff Keith Korenek said his department needs to offer higher salaries to attract and retain employees.

“We’ve got 58 positions at the Sheriff’s Office and we’re currently down five positions,” Korenek said. “We’re having the most difficult time trying to fill those, and I feel that it’s because of our pay scale.”

Korenek said surrounding agencies offer starting pay higher than what his department is able to offer.

“We’re losing people to Bastrop County, we’re losing people to Austin County, because they pay better,” Korenek said. “So any raises you can afford for us, to try and catch us up to these other departments, we’d most appreciate it. It’s most necessary if we’re going to continue to have the quality officers we have here.”

Fayette County EMS Director Josh Vandever said many healthcare professionals left the industry during the COVID-19 pandemic, especially paramedics.

“That is where a marked change in healthcare happened,” Vandever said. “It used to be that we’d bring people in, train them and in a couple of years they’d go to a different agency for better pay. Now, we bring people in, train them, have them for a couple of years and then they quit healthcare.”

Vandever said the average career span in the EMS industry is three to six years.

“If we could start getting five to ten years out of these people, we would be doubling our profession’s average,” Vandever said.

Vandever proposed a 10 percent raise for his department as a way of attracting and keeping medics.

Paula Vogel of the Fayette County Auditor’s Office said that the County will change the two-week pay period for Sheriff’s deputies from 80 hours to 86 hours in the next budget year. Federal labor laws authorize an 86-hour pay period for law enforcement officers to give public sector employers flexibility in dealing with unexpected overtime. Currently, Fayette County pays deputies overtime based on an 80-hour pay period. This has resulted in budget overruns in the Sheriff’s Office for overtime. Vogel said the change to an 86-hour pay period will help to get overtime costs under control.

“As I’ve said earlier, I think every employee of the County is good and deserves more money,” Mueller said after Korenek and Vandever spoke. “I do feel the Sheriff’s department and EMS are something that I hear quite often about losing personnel. If we want to be a strong County and operate in a professional manner, we have to have good people. And if paying those people more is something we have to do, I would not be opposed to a raise for the employees across the board and entertaining a higher raise for the Sheriff’s department and EMS personnel.”

Mueller then asked the Fayette County Auditor’s Office to prepare cost estimates of a 10 percent raise for the Sheriff’s Office and EMS and a five percent raise for all other County personnel.

Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff told the Record after the meeting that he was surprised by the 10 percent proposal.

“When the judge said that, I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Berckenhoff said. “We haven’t got the numbers from Cindy (Havelka, County Auditor) yet. What if we’re a half million dollars short? If we give five percent for everyone else and then run numbers to see if we can give seven for EMS and the Sheriff, I’m fine with that. But I don’t think I’m fine with 10 percent. I was in shock. The EMS and Sheriff Office, those are our two biggest departments. We’re talking about a lot of money. I’m for everyone making a decent living. But I don’t want to raise taxes to give a high dollar raise.”

Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom said he, too, was surprised by the proposal.

“The employees need an adjustment, because inflation is killing everybody,” McBroom said. “We’ve got to keep up, but we’ve got to do it at a slower pace, I think. Ten percent is a little too high.”

In an interview with the Record last Friday, County Auditor Cindy Havelka said she and her staff had been calculating budget figures based on a five percent raise for employees and a possible seven percent raise for EMS and the Sheriff’s Office. Havelka said she was also surprised by Mueller’s proposal of a 10 percent raise for EMS and the Sheriff’s Office.

“I was kind of floored because I had no clue that was one of the things they were thinking about,” Havelka said.

Havelka said Commissioners Court will have to cut expenses elsewhere in order to afford the Judge’s proposal. According to state law, counties must get voter approval if they wish to raise property taxes to increase revenue by more than 3.5 percent over the previous year. So far, there has been no discussion of a tax election for the County. Without an election, Havelka said the County will almost certainly have to lower its tax rate due to rising property values and new property in the County. The Fayette County Appraisal District calculates those rates and certifies them for each taxing district. Those numbers are expected to be ready later this week.

Havelka said her rough math indicates that the County will raise somewhat over a million dollars more in property tax revenue than last year. Just a five percent raise for all employees will cost about $900,000, she said.

Havelka said her staff has not yet calculated the cost of the 10 percent raise, but she said that amount will likely exceed any extra revenue the County brings in next year.

“My HR department is calculating that right now so I can go back and ask (the court), ‘Where are you going to come up with this?’” Havelka said. “They’re going to have to cut someplace.”

Commissioners will meet again this Thursday to discuss the budget.