Hays County Commissioners Court unanimously approved, with one absent, an agreement with the Hays County Law Enforcement Association to determine important employment issues for Hays County officers for the next three years.The Collective Bargaining Agreement is between Hays County and the Hays County Law Enforcement Association, the Hays County Sheriff’s Office and all Hays County Constables. The agreement will be effective from Nov. 5, 2024 to Sept. 30, 2027, and the agreement determines management rights, wages and pay, overtime pay, shift schedules, holidays and holiday pay, benefits, grievance procedures, hiring procedures, among other employment provisions.
“I think a good compromise is one where everybody leaves happy but a little bit hurt on certain things. You didn’t get everything you wanted. I know you didn’t. We didn’t get everything we wanted,” Hays County Commissioner Walt Smith said. “I think that’s a good negotiation, and it gives us room if we want to sit down in 2027 to address some of those issues … It gives us a good starting point.”
Jordan Powell, Hays County Civil First Assistant Criminal District Attorney, gave a presentation in court discussing new items added to the agreement.
“You will see that we have included additional positions into the bargaining unit as covered members,” Powell said. “A lot of our focus through a lot of these points are staying up with the market, and we’re trying to get a little bit ahead of it, making sure we don’t fall behind as a county. We have added emergency communications officers, corrections specialists 2 that are licensed county jailers, [Texas Law Enforcement Telecommunication Systems] specialists and 911 custodians.”
Powell said items have also been added regarding civil service for the Hays County Sheriff’s Office and a disciplinary appellate panel for the Hays County constable offices.
“Those sorts of things are related mainly — in regards to the sheriff’s office — to selections and classifications of employees, competitive examinations, promotions, seniority, tenure and layoffs and dismissals and disciplinary action,” Powell said. “Then for the constables offices — the disciplinary appellate panel I mentioned — is regarding disciplinary actions specific to the Hays County constables offices.”
Powell said a play plan for Fiscal Year 2025, which the court has already seen, and a pay plan for Fiscal Year 2026 are included in the agreement.
“That was in an effort to help spread some of the financial burden associated with bringing out some of those positions up to market for a more competitive process in recruiting efforts. We will also meet during year two leading up to year three of the contract, which would be FY ‘27, to meet and negotiate an updated pay plan and incentive pays for year three of the contract,” Powell said. “Some of the other changes in this agreement are that the previously included motor pay incentive has been removed, but a standby incentive has been added. That standby incentive is to help compensate employees who are required to be on a regular on-call basis, pre-scheduled.”
Hays County Commissioner Lon Shell was a part of the negotiation process and expanded on soft-pay incentives, of which the motor pay incentive falls under, and why they were removed.
“As we’ve developed soft pays over the last three or four contracts, they became a larger percentage of the overall budget than I think any of us actually realized,” Shell said. “I think through part of this process — trying to get our pay plan up to a market where we can recruit and retain quality employees — we realize maybe it’s time to sort of pause on the soft-pay expansion. Let’s do that this next midterm and get a more holistic strategy of how to deal with softpays, including motor, but let’s put the biggest amount that we can into the actual pay plan and not have so much going off into the different soft pay category.”
Powell said there was also “one small change” to the incentive pays.
“We did increase the uniform allowances to help keep up with what things actually cost these days. We also redefine and further define work periods for purposes of overtime compensatory pay in regards to hours worked, work periods and how those are defined for law enforcement individuals,” Powell said. “We’ve included a very nice chart … including how all of those overtime, compensatory pay and comp time is calculated and accrued. We also, in the collective bargaining agreement, have laid the foundation for pay and promotional policies related to the possible establishment of certain ranks within the constables offices.”
The commissioners unanimously approved, with one absent, the promotional policies for the constables offices, which was the next item on the agenda.
The full agreement can be found at destinyhosted.com/ hayscdocs/2024/ CC/20241105_82/ 3969%5F2024% 2D2027%5FCBA.pdf
