By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
A divided county commissioners court has approved a title change and a pay increase for one county employee.
The court made the change during its regular meeting on Nov. 6.
County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. announced the agenda item: “Discussion and possible action to make a salary adjustment and change title from community center coordinator to community center director.”
After Owens announced the agenda item, County Commissioner Pct. 4 Gustavo “Gus” told the court, “We’re talking here about Sandra Veliz. She started in 2012 with us as a part-timer. She was making $7.50 an hour. Then she went to a full-time position.
“Right now she’s making $37,783.20. I’d like to make a motion to adjust this salary to $40,000.”
County Commissioner Pct. 1 Martin Wardlaw gave the second to Flores’ motion.
After announcing that Flores had made the motion and Wardlaw had given the second, Owens said. “I’m going to vote no, and I’m going to give you some insight. In 2016, her (Veliz’s) base salary was $19,712, and in 2016, she was making $21,850, and today, she’s making $37,783.20, which is a 73 percent increase, an increase more than any other employee that I could find in our budget.”
Owens also charged with the employee in question had threatened to quit, which he said he did not appreciate.
“The problem that I really have with this is that we have 270-odd employees. We just went through our budget cycle, and this one individual is making more money and this court’s taking care of this one individual, the whole court, me included, have taken care of this one individual, more than we’ve taken care of our law enforcement and everybody else. It’s a shame because somebody threatens to quit, we’re going to give her more money. That’s my speech,” Owens finished.
County Commissioner Pct. 3 Beau Nettleton was the next to comment.
“In 2016, when this court came in, we were spending, on secretaries and stuff for the commissioners, a total of $24,000 a year. We are now up to spending $432,602.13 a year, which equates to 1.25 cents of our (county) tax rate. It’s costing us $230,000 in Precinct 4, $95,000 in Precinct 2 and $106,000 between Precinct 1 and Precinct 3. We’re up to nine people for four commissioners,” Nettleton said.
He said he had suggested increasing the pay for other county employees up to at least $30,000 a year during the last budget cycle and raising the pay for the commissioners’ secretary, but it was not done.
He added, “This is just not right, when we’re spending this kind of money in taxpayers’ money. Our job is to manage the taxpayers’ money and take care of the employees. We have elected officials there in the back (of the meeting room) that have employees that deserve every penny and more of what they should get. I just can’t continue going down this road. We had this discussion about this court tightening its belt and stopping some of these transfers and stuff, and we’re literally a month into this budget, and we’re starting this process all over again,” Nettleton said.
Owens said, “I defend the budget that I put together and presented to you all to pass.”
He spoke about requests the commissioners had made to hire secretaries with degrees that would have additional responsibilities and talked about the lack of funding he had for equipment when he served as a commissioner.
“I just really and truly have a hard time with this,” Owens finished.
He then said if there were no other conversations about the motion, he would take a vote.
Flores, Wardlaw and County Commissioner Pct. 2 Juan Carlos Vazquez voted in favor of Flores’ motion, and Owens and Nettleton voted against it.
“I do believe, though, if people aren’t happy, they need to go find another job,” Owens said after the vote.
County Auditor Matthew Weingardt then approached the podium and told the court it would have to decide where the extra money to pay Veliz would come from, and County Attorney David Martinez said the court would have to rescind the motion it had just passed to do that.
Flores rescinded his motion and asked Weingardt, “Where do we get the money?”
“Since it’s early (in the fiscal year), I would recommend contingency,” the county auditor replied.
The court eventually decided to move the amount needed from contingency, and the vote proceeded along the same lines, passing on a 3-2 vote.
The writer can be reached at delriomagnoliafan@gmail.com.
