Tom Green County Commissioners Slash Treasurer's, District Clerk's Salaries

Tensions ran high in commissioners' court Tuesday, when the commissioners addressed the issue of salaries for elected officials in fiscal year 2016. Treasurer Dianna Spieker and district clerk Sheri Woodfin were especially indignant about the court’s decision to cut their pay from $75,000 to a maximum of $70,000 annually.

The court’s decision was made in response to a ruling by the grievance court last August when the court determined that Spieker and Woodfin would have their pay raised to $75,000, a rate much higher than most other county employees.

During the salary discussions, County Judge Steve Floyd moved that the average elected employee pay be increased up to 4 percent with the exception of the tax assessor-collector, district clerk, county clerk and the treasurer. Although the salaries of the treasurer and district clerk will be reduced, the salaries of the tax assessor-collector and the county clerk have the potential to increase to up to $70,000.

Along with performing the duties of treasurer, Spieker is also the director of indigent health care and runs the county and justice court compliance division. Like most of the court, Spieker agreed that all four of the duties should be paid equally.

“Both Sheri and I had comparisons of what other offices do,” Spieker said. “I hate to brag on us, but we do more than the others. If there had been other officials that had filed a grievance, they would have been able to be heard and their salaries could have been set. I have no doubt that they would have been set equal to what Sheri and I got last year.

County tax assessor-collector Becky Robles responded quite sternly to Spieker’s statement, claiming that her office is no less busy or productive than any others in the county.

“Just because I don’t serve on a board and I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary, I still don’t think that my job is any less important,” Robles said. “I serve the public more in a capacity than most. This is difficult to say without stepping on toes, but some people chose to take extra jobs on. It wasn’t given to them, saying, ‘Hey, you have to take this.’ So that doesn’t even need to be brought into the process.”

According to Floyd, the decision to lower Spieker's and Woodfin's pay was made in order to be fair to taxpayers. The idea was brought up to increase each of the remaining two elected offices to $75,000, but the court eventually determined that the sum was simply too high.

“I offered a compromise that I don’t think anyone’s completely happy with because you’re basically going to offend some people however you do it,” Floyd said. “But bottom line [is that] we answer to the taxpayer. The taxpayer’s the one that pays our salaries.”

If these offices or other offices wish to have their pay raised, they have the option to settle the issue in grievance court. According to county policy, the court is chosen by creating a grand jury in January, which is then stocked with members who are willing and able to serve on grievance court. However, nobody on the court will be called into action until there is a request for the grand jury to appear.

“[With] a different set of names pulled, there may be a different outcome,” Floyd said. “That’s the reason that we certainly welcome any of the elected officials that want to file a salary grievance. Then we will go back through that process. In that point in time, they’ll either validate what last year’s salary grievance committee did or validate what we did today in terms of what we’re going to publish.”

Elections Administrator Vona Hudson offered a fairly emotional testimony, stating that the grievance committee in August was not handled like any she had previously served on. She said that if members of the committee were told that they could ask questions or make comments, the outcome could have been completely different.

“As an employee of the county, I think there needs to be more fairness across the board,” Hudson said. “We all do come in and do our job and work hard. Serving on other committees, that’s a personal choice. That’s a willingness to step up and lead us. I venture to say that there’s a lot of people in the county that do that. They just don’t get known by you."

Floyd’s motion concerning these offices’ salaries was made after over an hour discussing the issue, including a 10 minute recess. The motion was then carried by other members of the court.

“When that decision came down, I knew that we would have this day, that there would be some pretty heated discussion,” Floyd said. “You could hear the emotion in some people’s voices about things because it’s hard not to just take it personal sometimes about some things. That’s the reason that I knew that it would be a tough day to get here.”

The court compared the average of Tom Green county employees’ salaries to pay in Taylor, Midland, Hector and Lubbock counties. Floyd pointed out that the sheriff in the county is currently paid far under the average of these other counties. Therefore, the sheriff’s maximum compensation for fiscal year 2016 now stands at $78,000.

“That still would put that position 10 percent under the average for the other four counties in our region that we compared it to,” Floyd said. “I just think that’s been in an inequity in the elected official’s salary structure that’s existed for a long time. We will incrementally try to solve that over the next few budget years.”

The preliminary, maximum pay for public officials will be published by the county on Friday. As the figure that will be posted is the maximum these employees can receive, Floyd estimates that pay will be increased by about 3.5 percent rather than 4 percent. The final vote that determines the employees’ pay is set for August 4.

Although Floyd wished to remain true to the taxpayers, he also was adamant about the stellar performance of Tom Green County's officials.

“We want to attract and we have some very highly qualified elected officials that are state leaders in their respective fields,” Floyd said. “We don’t want to diminish their efforts and their professionalism, we’re just trying to strike a balance that’s fair to the taxpayer and fair to our elected officials.”