Increasing salaries and employee retention was at the helm of budget requests during last week’s budget workshop in front of the Bowie County Commissioners Court.
“It looks like we’re all battling the same monster when it comes to that. If you’ve got good people and you can’t pay them, they go where they can get paid. It’s tough,” said James Strain, Precinct 3 Commissioner.
The court met for their annual budget workshop last Monday at the Bowie County Courthouse.
Several agencies in the county asked the court for budgetary raises to allow for employee raises. Most of the departments asked for an additional five percent in wages, according to their budget request worksheets.
“The hardest thing that we have to do, for all of us I’m sure, is get somebody to come to work for us. Like James Elliott used to say that if you pay peanuts all you’re going to get is clowns,” said Bowie County District Attorney Jerry Rochelle to the court.
Rochelle asked the court to allot an additional 27 percent to the DA’s budget with a majority of that increase allotted to salary caps in the department.
“What I’m looking to do with my budget request is not to spend that money, but to have those positions budgeted so that in the event somebody were to come to work and then they put in 10 years, they put in 15 years, however long it may be, I’d be able to increase their salary past just that of an assistant district attorney. It’s me trying to create a retention policy,” Rochelle said.
He requested to cap the salaries of assistant district attorneys at $125,000.
Sheriff Jeff Neal also asked for retention pay for employees of his office.
It was the second year Neal had requested longevity pay.
“As we told you last year, it is statutorily required for counties that are over 150,000 in population. We’re not there, we’re not getting close to that anytime soon, but … it would do something to hopefully help with retention and give them some incentive moving forward,” Neal said.
Neal also requested to increase the pay of the sheriff’s office administrative assistant to match the state mandated minimum salary requirement for the administrative assitant of the county jail following the passage of Senate Bill 22 in the 88th legislative session.
Pat McCoy, the election administrator, made his requests for nearly $230,000 more than last year’s budget to cover costs associated with a midterm election cycle. McCoy estimated his department will oversee five elections in the calendar year.
His requests cover the cost of bi-annual voter registration cards, mailing expenses and early voting staffing among other election costs.
Increases in trial expenses were also requested by the district court, the public defenders office and Rochelle.
According to Al Smith and Rochelle, felony trials have doubled since last year which has increased departmental expenses.
Other budget increase requests were to cover costs of regular operations cost increases and education.
The court will meet later to approve a finalized budget before the October 1 fiscal year starts.
