JPs make case for clerk raises

Burnet County’s justices of the peace showed their solidarity Tuesday, Aug. 10, with all four asking commissioners to again consider reclassifying the primary JP court clerks and increasing their salary commensurate with the amount earned by other departments’ court coordinators.

Currently, the county has one classification for justice court clerks, which is a level 60 on the county organizational chart. The new budget got rid of a lower classification for a floater clerk and made it equal to the full-time justice court clerks.

The JPs made the case their “chief” clerks act more as court coordinators and perform a variety of duties, both clerical and fiscal, which could see them reclassified as high as a level 68.

“The commissioners graciously did move up our floater clerk, so now it is in line with all of our other clerks in the county, so it is at the correct grade, but our chief clerk is now at the same grade as our floater clerk,” Precinct 4 Justice of the Peace Debbie Bindseil said. “As I know you are all aware, even as having foremen in your business or your chief person, they are usually paid more because they are in a supervisory position.

“The duties of our chief clerk is the same as your foreman. They have the same duties in that they are supervising staff. They are our office managers. They are the financial officers to our office. They take care of everything.”

“I think sometimes we don’t realize the JP clerk that we have has changed tremendously from when they just processed traffic tickets and scheduled weddings,” Precinct 2 JP Lisa Whitehead added. “If you could follow them around and see all the things they do, they have to take off one hat and put on another 15 times a day.

“You each have a person you depend on. That’s that person who is your right hand person. You may have four or five others on your staff, but your foreman you bounce things off and depend on them to be there in your stead.”

Precinct 1 JP Roxanne Nelson presented a five-page job description to commissioners to explain what jobs their clerks are performing “so you can compare the actual job duties and responsibilities of a JP clerk to all of the other jobs.

“If you look at the job description and we take personalities and individual people out of it and we put them into the proper classification, with a keen eye on detail, you will see they belong in a different classification,” Nelson said. “Have we put that keen eye on all reclassifications this year and in prior years? I’m not sure we have.

“We have individuals in separate departments that do some of these jobs in order to make the county court at law and the district courts operate properly and efficiently, but our clerks are doing all these jobs to make sure to keep the JP courts operating efficiently.”

Bindseil also asked that commissioners consider adding an additional half-clerk position to both her office and that of Precinct 3 JP Jane Marie Hurst, which would give both justices two full-time clerical positions to handle what she called a growing caseload.

“Right now, we have one and a half that we share,” Bindseil said. “I know that we have not had an increase in our office in over 15 years. In 25 years, there was an increase of a quarter of a clerk. This is the third time we have come on the budget in requesting this. I think it is a fair thing and something very important and needed in our office.”

County Judge James Oakley said he “put forth what I thought the budget needed to be, but it is up to this body as to what actually becomes accepted and approved.” He noted that while Precinct 1 has only one clerk and Precinct 2 has two clerks — of which one is shared with Burnet CISD to handle truancy cases — only Precincts 3 and 4, which already have a floating clerk spot, have asked for another clerical position.

“Precincts 3 and 4 have a floater and a total of three people serving two offices,” Oakley said. “Each has their own full time and then they split a full time person. That’s the one we raised up to be the same level as the head one. Now I am hearing we need to make the other one higher because they are supposed to be over that person. Maybe we should undo that raise?”

“I don’t think so,” Bindseil answered. “I think that posting (the floater clerk) is up to where exactly they need to be compared to our other clerks at other offices throughout the county.”

After a request by Nelson to consider raising the clerk’s salary at last month’s court meeting, county HR director Sarah Ann Luther performed a survey at the request of County Auditor Karin Smith of the closest counties “not only for the JP clerks but also for the other clerks to which they were compared at the last meeting.” She presented her findings Tuesday.

“I looked at every clerk and it’s a little difficult because not every county has a chief clerk,” Luther said. “What we call a chief clerk, someone else might refer to as a Level I or Level II, so it is difficult sometimes to compare apples to apples. For other counties, I just put their high clerk and their low clerk because there is no standard for this. If you look, we are paying the same or more than every other county we surveyed.”

Precinct 4 Commissioner Joe Don Dockery asked what increase in workload the justice courts have seen after recent legislation raised their statutory jurisdiction from $10,000 to $20,000.

“We are seeing a lot more cases,” Bindseil said. “Just like in any office, last year was an exception due to a pandemic. The courts slowed down last year, but the courts have picked up and the debt claim cases have picked up a lot in the last two months. This has been something that has been long overdue and needed when you are looking at 15 years of no increase in the staff and you compare that to even all of the other offices have increased in staff.”

“Obviously the pandemic has skewed everyone’s workload in some form or fashion,” Hurst added. “We’ve had less tickets because law enforcement were instructed not to do certain types of tickets, which did affect our offices to a degree. However, because of our jurisdictional increase of up to $20,000, a lot of other new cases are being seen and will continue to grow to be seen.

“We are seeing slip and fall cases. A lot of people don’t realize that can be in JP court, but when we are talking about someone just claiming a monetary amount for an incident that happened, there are going to be a number of cases that are going to be in JP court rather than county court.”

Hurst also said in 2019, the JPs collectively had 7,000 cases, while the district court handled 2,300 cases and the county court handled about 2,600.

When asked by Precinct 1 Commissioner Jim Luther Jr. for a breakdown of the caseload per precinct, Hurst said one can be arranged and noted “you have different needs in your precincts and for your purposes, just as we do. Some of us have more criminal and some of us have more civil.”

“Are all of you commissioners’ jobs the same as far as your work crew as they do what they do?” Bindseil asked. “They’re different. I’ve heard even here in this court where you talk about the difference. Don’t put us all together all the time.

“I’m not jumping on you. I’m just trying to show you we have a need. We are asking for an increase in the grade level of our chief clerk. It’s 60. We’re open. That’s what the request was. You can look at what the job description is and it fits everyone, even up to a grade 68.”

Oakley said the county has budgeted money for the next fiscal year — up to $25,000 — to pay for a study of county work operations to help determine if positions are being paid equitably for the jobs they are performing.

“That is something best to have an unbiased eye looking at,” Oakley added.

Precinct 2 Commissioner Damon Beierle asked the justices which would be “the most pressing if you had to pick one.”

“You’re asking us to choose between two things that are more important,” said Bindseil.

“It’s a little different for each of us,” Whitehead said. “I would choose all four of our chief clerks be classified to a grade that is more appropriate for the duties they handle every day. They really are at a 68, if you look on paper.

“I know money is hard to come up with. I am speaking only for myself and not everyone in here. I would be happy and satisifed if we could reclassify to a 64. That’s a good compromise. We’ve discussed it and believe it should be a 68. They are court coordinators and handle every detail in our court. A 60 is not appropriate for the duties they perform every day. A 68 is great and we’d be jumping for joy. A 64 and we’d feel like we were listened to and that you value what we say.”